


FIC: Two of a Kind

by deslea



Series: Two of a Kind [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon to mid-battle, F/M, Fic, Grief, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-03
Updated: 2012-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-27 23:33:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 35,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/301271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deslea/pseuds/deslea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The four stages of grief are shock, anger, denial and acceptance. Or: After the war, two unlikely widows find a way to keep on standing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Bellatrix in pursuit, Tonks channels her shock and her inner reserves to leave her husband's body behind, only to collide - literally - with Lucius Malfoy. When the ash settles, Lucius, in Azkaban, deals with a loss of his own. An overture from an unexpected source leads him to grasp onto his little remaining sanity and hold on for dear life.

**[SHOCK - TONKS]**

 

There were two Doras.

There always had been, really. She was, after all, a half-blood, neither exactly Muggle nor exactly magical, but a strange creature in between.

Perhaps the two Doras reflected her twin natures.

It was a duality she lived like breathing. She functioned on two completely different planes of consciousness and motivation, both coexisting and one choosing dominance over the other as the situation demanded. One Dora was passionate and idealistic, the other practical and ruthless. One dreamed and intuited; the other observed and calculated. One walked with her head in the clouds and tripped over her own feet; the other duelled with grace and deadly accuracy. One soaked up everything in the world around her; the other filtered it out and saw things overlooked by others.

The two Doras worked as a team, mostly, together making up the person called Tonks. It was how a clumsy, awkward young woman made a damn fine Auror in a stinking man's world.

They were not working as a team now.

Passionate Dora was slumped over her husband, choking on her grief, clutching at her breast as a cold hand twisted around her heart. Practical Dora was on her feet, ruthlessly dismissing Remus as beyond help. Just a crumpled heap on the ground.

She had loved him - oh, how she had loved him - but she intended to live.

Practical Dora did not spare her husband a backward glance, nor a tear. Both could give another the advantage. There was a little box inside her for moments like this, and Remus was consigned there without ceremony, like flinging a body into water in secret. She would open the box at some time when her life was not at stake. Whether he would understand or forgive her disregard was irrelevant. He was dead; his anger could not hurt her.

She intended to live.

She ran, away from Dolohov, away from Bellatrix. Her hair flipped around her wildly as she glanced over her shoulder. It had turned dead white - Passionate Dora's grief, probably - and it was a fact she noted only to consider the implications. She could pass for pureblood; she might get past at least some of the Death Eaters, if there was any benefit in doing so. On the other hand, she might also be mistaken for one by those defending the castle. It could be to her benefit, or not.

She rounded the corner into the main courtyard. It was a bloody bloodbath out here. Bellatrix was on her tail, shrieking insanely about blood traitors or some such rot. Dora was not tempted to return her taunts, saving her breath for flight.

Bella was gaining, she thought; she could hear it in the tiny increase in volume of her clattering footsteps. It didn't matter that there were a thousand other sounds around her. Bella's insanity existed on a frequency of its own.

"Die, half-blood bitch!" Bella screamed, casting spells at her. She wasn't close enough for an Unforgivable, but she was close enough to do some harm and slow her down. Practical Dora kept running, looking over her shoulder, dodging and weaving, a feat Passionate Dora could never have managed.

Ahead of her, the archway out to the grass was blocked by fallen rubble - those wretched giants, she thought. _Well shit. What now?_ She feinted to her right and ducked between the columns into the main courtyard. Bellatrix did the same, and now she was within killing distance. The first green flash missed her by a hair.

"Narcissa!" someone cried out, and then she was crashing to the ground, smothered in black fabric and blonde hair. Her hand was out and free, but she was looking out, side-on and couldn't get her aim. Her wand was plucked from her fingers and used on Bella. Not an Unforgivable, but bad, whatever it was. Bella was thrown back a good twenty feet.

"It isn't Narcissa, you idiot!" Bella screeched as she got to her feet. "Bloody _look_ at her!"

The crushing weight on top of her lifted and her head was freed. Hard fingers took her chin and turned her to look up at the uncle she'd never properly met.

The look that came over Lucius Malfoy was not vicious, but shocked and grieving. Like someone had pulled all the hope out from under him. "Nymphadora Tonks?" he demanded in a low, rasping voice that sounded suspiciously like a sob.

 _Lupin_ , she almost corrected, then didn't. Dora Lupin was in the box along with Remus and she would just as soon she stayed there. She just nodded.

"Fucking perverted blood traitor!" Bellatrix shrieked. "Who the hell fucks a werewolf?"

At this, Fenrir Greyback, feasting nearby on the body of a student (Dora couldn't make out who), gave a snarl. It sounded wet and there was blood on his lips, and Dora shuddered. Greyback lunged for Bellatrix, who stared at him in horror for a moment before turning on her heel and fleeing.

Lucius was getting off her. He still held her wand, but he held out a hand to her. She hesitated, but then shrugged and took it. After all, he'd disarmed her, but didn't appear intent on killing her.

He helped her up, then held up her wand. He said in a low voice, "I won't hurt you. I just want my wife. Understood?"

Her brows knit together in utmost surprise. _Lucius_ , of all people, was indifferent to the battle? And then she got a closer look, saw the weatherbeaten face and the tired eyes, and suddenly she wasn't surprised at all.

"All right."

"On your honour, as an Auror. You'll let me go if I give this back?"

She stared at him. Suddenly realised he didn't have a wand of his own.

"Y-yes," she stammered. Practical Dora was trying to find a practical explanation and could find none.

He handed it to her, and, cautiously, she took it. Watched as he went to the body of the child abandoned by Greyback. He grimaced and took the girl's wand from her mutilated fingers.

It dawned on her that he had not wanted her to be without her own wand, the wand that would best defend her in battle.

"Lucius-" she began, but then suddenly her head was pounding and the blood roaring in her ears and Voldemort's awful voice was echoing in there. Lucius was cringing and clasping his hands to his ears, and scanning around her, she saw that everyone else was, too.

She groped for meaning. A ceasefire. Bury the dead. Harry was to surrender himself. The battle would resume if he did not. Everything else was lost in ugly, echoing, clanging noise.

Bury the dead, she thought. Somewhere inside her, Dora Lupin was beating her fists on the lid of the box, demanding to be let out.

"I'll help you look," she said abruptly. This, at least, was something she could do. Something _practical_.

Lucius stared at her.

"She's blood," she said sharply. Then, with no idea of whether it was true, she added, "Mum would want me to help."

Lucius hesitated, his eyes flitting over her face, as though looking for an ulterior motive and finding none. Finally, he gave a single, gruff nod of his head.

They picked their way through the rubble together.

 

* * *

 

"Merlin," Lucius rasped.

The Great Hall was a disaster area. People were sobbing and bleeding and broken. Dora picked her way carefully around the dead and injured. Lucius seemed to be bowed more and more with every step. A few people shot them curious glances, but no one challenged them. Either Lucius was considered trusted because he was with her, or they were just too exhausted to care about anyone who was not attacking them personally.

"Don't you need to look for people? Your husband?" he said conventionally, as though politely concerned that he might have been monopolising her, like she was a hostess at some insufferable pureblood party.

"No," she said sharply.

"Oh," he said, coming up short. Realisation flooded over his tired features. He said, more gently, "I'm sorry."

She thought he really was, that was the problem. She could hear it in his voice. If she hadn't, she'd have just told him to stick his Death Eater platitudes where the sun didn't shine, but to her horror, she could feel heat and salt rising up in her face.

"Let's look outside," she said raggedly.

So they went outside, and they picked through bodies, but none of them were Remus, so Practical Dora didn't mind. Passionate Dora might have, but Passionate Dora could go fuck herself as far as Practical Dora was concerned.

None of them were Narcissa, either.

They made their way back indoors, and Dora watched as the Weasleys comforted one another over the body of one of the twins - she wasn't sure which. How sad, she thought with a mild feeling that vaguely resembled pity.

Passionate Dora gave a mocking laugh. _Sad, is it? Don't have a heart or anything there. You might strain something._

 _Oh, shut up,_ she thought. _This heartless bitch keeps your sorry over-emotional ass alive, so just cut me some fucking slack, all right?_

To this, Passionate Dora apparently had no reply, because she fell silent.

"Draco!" Lucius cried out, breaking away from her. Draco - her cousin, she realised with a jolt, having never quite connected him mentally as family - was standing there, dirty with dust and ash, visible for only a second before Lucius clutched him into his arms.

"What _happened_ to you?" he rasped.

"Crabbe...Fiendfyre," Draco choked out. "Potter got me out."

"Potter?" Lucius said in astonishment, pulling back to look at him.

"I think it was because I didn't give him up to Bellatrix. That time at the Manor."

Dora's brow knit together as she absorbed this. Clearly, the Malfoys had had mixed loyalties for some time. She didn't think they were necessarily on the Order's side, but at a minimum, they were not actively committed to the Dark Lord's.

Curiouser and curiouser.

"Crabbe's dead," Draco whispered. "Stupid, vicious little asshole was my friend."

"I told you not to trust him," Lucius said, but as I-told-you-sos went, it was a gentle one.

"Where's Mum?" Draco said, looking around them.

Lucius let him go. His shoulders dropped. "I lost her," he said in a low voice. "Nymphadora - your...aunt - has been helping me look."

Dora almost corrected him, then didn't. In the old families, _aunt_ could apply to any older female relative, but that was not the case in her own. Andromeda had many reasons to encourage distance rather than closeness with the Blacks.

Draco shot Dora only the briefest of questioning looks. She supposed that his non-reaction made sense; if there was one thing she knew about the Malfoys, it was that - unlike the Blacks - blood was their first loyalty.

His curiosity was quickly replaced with fear. "Could she be out there?" he said, grasping his father's cloak. "With _them?_ "

Any doubts Dora had about the Malfoys disappeared in that moment. Whatever might have motivated them in the past, they were now there only out of fear. It was etched clearly in father's and son's matching features.

She spoke up. "Is she armed?" Lucius had been disarmed; it was not impossible that Voldemort had disarmed them all. Especially if the family had done something as reckless as allowing Harry to escape from their home. "Did the Dark Lord take her wand?"

Draco shook his head. "Hers was the only one we had left. She gave it to me." There was a flicker in his lower jaw, barely perceptible if you weren't looking for it. "She's defenceless."

Lucius swallowed, but said only, "Wandless, maybe. Defenceless, no. She's a Malfoy."

"And a Black," she added. Placed a tentative hand on his elbow. "Come on. Let's keep looking."

 

* * *

 

Narcissa was not in the castle.

They had been everywhere - everywhere, that is, except the small stretch of walkway where Remus had died. She had hung back while Lucius and Draco checked there, and when they had returned, she'd fixed Lucius with a cold stare before he could speak.

He'd given a slight nod, his eyes gray with a compassion that surprised her, but said only, "Let's check somewhere else."

"Please," she had said, and turned on her heel and walked away.

Now, they stood in the courtyard, the truth settling over them like a cloud as the dawn began to stretch its fingers across the sky.

"She's out there," Draco whispered.

"Well, maybe she is, but the hour's up," Dora said briskly. "One way or another, they'll be here soon. To end it. That's your chance. You can't be seen. If Voldemort sees you here, he'll kill her." _Assuming he hasn't already_ , she thought, but she doubted it. Either he believed Narcissa was loyal, or he would wait to kill her until Lucius and Draco were there to watch. "It would be safest if we could indicate to her that you're here. Are either of you skilled in Legilimency?"

Lucius nodded. "Severus taught us. Occulumency, too. I can't say we're very good at it, but he got us to a point where we could...withstand...the Dark Lord for short periods."

Dora arched an eyebrow. "Severus? Well, the plot thickens."

"He made an Unbreakable Vow to Narcissa to protect Draco when Draco was threatened with harm to us. That's why he killed Dumbledore, you know. Poor bastard didn't have a choice."

"Dad!" Draco burst out.

"Oh, come, Draco. Do you really think it matters anymore? I'd like to think we can save him and you from Azkaban, if any of us survive at all." Lucius pinned Dora with his gaze. "I'd like you to see to it, Nymphadora. Would you do me the favour of looking into my mind? Take any evidence that might help, so you can testify after the war."

Dora said curiously, "I'd be happy to, Lucius, but you do realise that what I see may damn you as much as it saves Draco and Severus? Not to mention the _very_ interesting fact that you seem to view our victory as a foregone conclusion."

Lucius gave a mirthless laugh. "I doubt there's much hope for me either way. As such, I will hold back nothing, but let you search at will. As for the other, there is a Muggle poem with the line, _Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold._ That's the Dark Lord, Nymphadora. Has been for some time."

She wanted to correct him, to tell him to call her Tonks, but that would have made them friends of a sort, and she wasn't going to do that. Instead, she said, "Muggle poetry? Seriously?"

"Don't get excited, Nymphadora. It was quoted in the Daily Prophet a year ago - in an article submitted, no doubt, by a Muggle-born. I was, for my own reasons, rather taken with the imagery. It had become...rather prophetic."

Frowning, she nodded. "All right. Let's begin. We don't have much time. I'd like to see your memories, too, Draco, if you don't mind."

Draco looked horrified, a flush of shame rising in his cheeks, but Lucius placed a stilling hand on his shoulder. "Do it, son. Please. It's important. I want you to survive it. So does your mother." He didn't wait for an answer, only turned back to Dora. "Begin."

She stepped closer, and touched her fingers to his temples. Not strictly necessary, but it helped. " _Legilimens._ "

There were no doorways or walls or passages, just a flood of images. She had never entered such an uncontrolled mind, one so consciously, deliberately naked and open, and she rocked on her heels. It was like swooning, all colour and swirling around her.

A young Lucius, looking down adoringly on his bride in the sun. It was an arranged marriage, Dora realised, but he found Narcissa pleasing. He was willing to love her, was halfway there already, and Narcissa looked like she loved him just as much. A little later, looking down on a blonde-haired baby, then, frowning, at the Dark Mark on his arm _,_ thinking, _What have I done?_ Clutching at a young Narcissa, saying over and over, _Thank Merlin it's over,_ a newspaper on the couch beside them, headlines screaming, _Dark Lord Falls._ An older Lucius, expression wrinkled with distaste on Platform 9 3/4, watching children jostle against Draco as he set off for Hogwarts. Ugly thoughts came from him. _half-bloods, Mudbloods, I should never have let Narcissa talk me into this. Durmstrang would have been so much better._

A year or two later. Narcissa yelling at him. _How could you do something so stupid?_ Yelling back, _He never said what it was! I just thought it would stir up trouble. Give Slytherin an advantage. With that idiot Dumbledore favouring Gryffindor at every turn, those poor kids need every bit of help they can get._ Narcissa pushing him, hard. _Yes, because an artefact of the Dark Lord's was sure to be harmless,_ she said scathingly. _You put that awful thing in a school full of children, including our own. For a stupid competition. You stupid, stupid -_ and then he was on her, kissing her, hard. _Love you - sorry - don't be angry, my love -_ and Narcissa clutching at him, _Damn you, love you, damn you,_ somehow gentle and urgent at the same time.

A little later. Lucius and Snape, drinking from big brandy snifters. _Perhaps it would be helpful if you would teach us Legilimency and Occulumency. All three of us. To help the Dark Lord, of course._ A flash of distaste on Snape's angular features in the firelight. _I assure you, Lucius, I wish to be no closer to Bellatrix's mind than absolutely necessary._ Lucius swirling his drink in his glass. _You misunderstand me. I mean myself, Narcissa, and Draco._ Naked shock on Snape's face, just for a moment, then a carefully neutral expression. _I should be happy to help you, Lucius. For the Dark Lord, of course._

The Department of Mysteries. Lucius advancing on Harry and his friends. Sizing them up. Potter, the half-blood, exceptional only because of his mother's sacrifice. The powerful Mudblood, Granger, probably the most dangerous of them all (and here, Dora realised with a jolt that Lucius admired strong magic of any origin). The Weasley blood traitors, the boy common and weak like his father, the girl powerful like all the Prewett women. Longbottom and Lovegood, purebloods both, with little or no inbreeding. They were less seasoned, but their magic could prove unexpectedly strong. _Children, all of them_ , he thought as he spoke in silky tones to Potter, and he didn't want to kill children, but so help him, he would if he had to. Narcissa and Draco were waiting at home, and if he didn't come back, then Voldemort would turn up on the doorstep in his stead. She watched the prophecy break and felt something inside him break along with it, images of Voldemort's retribution on them tumbling through his mind.

A broken Lucius in Azkaban. Broken, but holding onto his mind while all around were losing theirs. Chanting in his head all day, every day, in time with his footsteps as he paced in his cell. _Narcissa. Draco. Narcissa. Draco. NarcissaDracoNarcissaDracoNarcissaDraco._ Pouring over every good memory of them he could find. Passing the time by reliving his life.

A weatherbeaten Lucius, shaking a tearful Narcissa, sputtering. _Severus - Unbreakable Vow - Merlin, how could you do that! You've got to be smarter than that!_ Kissing her tears away. _Stupid brave woman. You saved our son. You saved our son._ Sinking to the floor in the light of the fire. Dora turned away.

Lucius hours ago. Running hand in hand with Narcissa, running for the castle. _DracoDracoDraco._ A green flash of light shooting between them, no idea who cast it. Linked hands letting go. Trying to find their way back, but Narcissa had been drawn into fighting alongside Dolohov. She protested that she had no wand, but he wouldn't be moved. If she didn't stay and fight with him, he would kill her. Narcissa screamed in his mind, _Go! Find Draco!_ Then, later, running through the castle. Desperate. _NarcissaDracoNarcissaDraco._ Ignoring Order members and children. Dodging curses with no thought of returning them. _NarcissaNarcissaNarcissa._ Felt his one shining moment of relief when he'd spotted Dora from behind and thought he'd found her, then the realisation of his mistake like a crushing blow.

Dora pulled out of Lucius' mind. Let her fingers linger on his face. "Lucius," she whispered. Passionate Dora was perilously close to the surface. Lucius' red-rimmed eyes looked unspeakably old. To her horror, there were tears in her own.

"My turn," Draco muttered. "Come on, _aunt_ , before I change my mind."

Dora could have blessed him. "Watch it," she said mildly, turning to face him. Leaned forward and touched his temples. " _Legilimens._ "

She spent less time in Draco's memories. Long enough to see him tasked with killing Dumbledore, under threat to his parents' lives. Saw him rejecting Snape's help, combination of mistrust and childish ego. Saw his despair, saw him weeping in the bathroom, saw his inability to complete his mission. Saw Snape step forward in response to things spoken and unspoken by Dumbledore. Saw him let opportunities to betray Harry pass him by.

"Thank you," she said gently as she withdrew.

Draco gave a curt, autocratic nod.

Lucius' hand was on her arm. "They're coming," he whispered, and then she heard it, footsteps. Lots of them. Laughter and jeering. Figures emerged from the morning fog as they drew back, ducking between the columns onto the walkway. Concealed by the pillars.

The first recognisable figure was Hagrid, looking hopeless, carrying a bundle in his arms. Then Voldemort himself, his enchanted snake, and Bellatrix, damn her, dancing around him like a demented faerie. Then a large group of Death Eaters, Narcissa in the middle. Narcissa's gaze slid idly to the side, where they were concealed, and she took a deliberately casual sideways step in the other direction.

"You got through to her?" Dora whispered. Voldemort was speaking as they entered the courtyard. She ignored him.

Lucius nodded, watching Narcissa with a puckered brow. "She says she... _did_ something. She says it isn't over yet."

"Isn't over?" she queried. "What does that mean?"

Just then, McGonagall emerged from the Great Hall, others hot on her heels, and gave a piteous cry. "Harry!"

Dora stared at McGonagall, then followed her line of vision to the bundle in Hagrid's arms. Suddenly understood. The knowledge hit her like a slap, and she rocked on her heels. Grasped Lucius by the arm. Draco, behind another column a few feet away, was dead white.

"Harry," she whispered. "He gave himself up. Oh, gods."

Sounds of grief and outrage broke out as Voldemort announced Harry's death, and then things happened very fast.

Neville rushed forward, but was quickly subdued. Voldemort invited him to join their forces, and retaliated from his predictable refusal. Mocked him with the Sorting Hat, and set it on fire. Behind them, Dora could hear galloping and thundering, but Voldemort carried on heedless.

And still Narcissa was inching her way towards the walkway opposite. Glancing warily from Hagrid to Voldemort and back.

Suddenly Dora understood. It all came together in a rush.

_Harry wasn't dead._

And Narcissa was leading Voldemort's retribution away from Lucius and Draco.

"No," she whispered, and stepped forward.

Lucius dragged her back. "What the hell are you doing, woman?"

"Narcissa - she - Harry -" was all she could burst out, but then Neville suddenly emerged from the flames of the Sorting Hat with the Sword of Gryffindor, and cut the head off the snake. At the same moment, the centaurs burst into the courtyard, scattering people in all directions.

And Harry leaped down from Hagrid's arms.

Lucius gave a rasping sound as it all came together, but it was too late. Voldemort gave a terrifying roar of fury and turned unerringly on Narcissa. "You _lied!_ " he hissed. " _Avada Kedavra!_ "

The spell hit Narcissa in the stomach, and she fell back. Lucius gave a low, harsh, barking sound. Draco doubled over, as though he'd taken a kick to the stomach along with her, and slumped to the ground, head in his hands, his thin shoulders wracking with sobs. Lucius made a wild, uncontrolled move towards her, but Dora gripped him by the elbow, hard. " _Don't_ ," she hissed. "If you go, he'll kill you. _And_ Draco."

It was the right thing - possibly the only thing she could possibly have said. He slumped against her as Death Eaters and centaurs spread out in all directions.

In a matter of seconds, punctuated by Lucius' hoarse, grieving rasps, the courtyard was empty. Those who were not fighting in the castle had run for their lives. Judging that it was safe - well, safer - she released her grip on Lucius' arm.

They walked towards Narcissa together, the three of them, footsteps thundering in her ears. Like a deathwalk to the gallows. Draco slipped to his knees at his mother's side, tears streaming down his cheeks. Lucius sank down beside him.

Narcissa was alive. Mortally wounded, but alive. It happened sometimes when it wasn't a clean hit. The Avada Kedavra wasn't an exact spell, and Voldemort had lashed out wildly in fury with only a sideways look for aim.

Lucius was stroking Narcissa's face. His face was hidden behind his hair, but his shoulders were shaking. "Quickly, Narcissa," he rasped, "any memories that might save Draco. Nymphadora, come."

Dora sank down opposite Lucius and Draco. Looked down at Narcissa, curiously, and recognised something of herself and their shared bloodline in her features. Narcissa looked at her appraisingly.

"Andromeda's daughter," she whispered.

"Yes. _Legilimens._ "

She didn't linger in Narcissa's mind; the cloying, dragging feeling of death's approach was strong. Narcissa sent her a stream of images that largely echoed what she already knew. She saw Snape's Unbreakable Vow and the way Bellatrix had forced him into it; that might keep him out of Azkaban if he survived the war. She got additional verification that Lucius and Draco had been threatened with harm to the family. A few random snippets of words - _Love you - we rise or fall together._ And then, one snippet more, not a memory, but a message: _Tell Andromeda I wished things were different._

Dora nodded as she withdrew. Sank back on her knees as Lucius leaned forward, murmuring against Narcissa's brow. Tears were streaming down his cheeks into her hair. Dora couldn't hear what they were saying, and didn't want to. She had no wish to witness their tearful goodbye.

She looked away, waiting for it to be over. Listening for sounds from the Great Hall. The cacophony of cracks and pops of spells had consolidated into a single exchange. _The last stand_ , she thought. _It will be over soon. One way or another._ She wasn't sure whether she meant Narcissa or the war or both.

Lucius choked out a harsh sound, cry of a wounded animal. Narcissa was gone.

Just then, there was an enormous explosion. A moment of dead silence. Then cheers erupted from the Great Hall. Too many and too childish for Death Eaters.

Harry had won.

She turned to Lucius, hunched and weeping over his wife. Gently touched his arm. "Send a Patronus when they come for you and Draco," she said. "I'll come." She rose and walked away without awaiting a reply.

She had to make a deathwalk of her own.

 

* * *

 

Thudding, thundering footsteps, echoing down the walkway. A crumpled pile of clothes came into view.

Passionate Dora, Dora Lupin, was cracking open the box. Pushed the lid up, tentatively, looking around the rubble intently. She was covered in dirt and dust and her hair was white and she had aged a thousand years.

She walked closer.

The bundle of clothes came into view, and she saw that it wasn't a bundle of clothes at all. It was a man, with brown hair and a brown moustache and scars on his face. She tried and failed to reconcile the still figure before her, with the man who had smiled and laughed and touched her and held her and plunged into her in the dead of night.

She stood over him. Dora Lupin stood over him, too.

"Remus," she whispered, "oh, Remus."

She sank to her knees beside him with a terrible cry from her gut, and bent her head to his chest. Her cries were foreign to her own ears, animalistic and furious. She screamed out his name until she was hoarse. Wrenched her arms away from whoever it was that came to her.

"I know," someone was whispering, wrestling her against his chest, all black and blonde around her. "God, I know."

Tonks gave way then, and wept her soul out in Lucius Malfoy's arms.

* * *

**[SHOCK - LUCIUS]**

 

_Draco. Draco. Draco._

He thought it with each step in his cell. It was the way he'd survived it last time, and the way he survived it now. But one of his two reasons was gone, and he felt it in the little arrhythmia of every second footstep, the one that was supposed to be for Narcissa.

Oh, not that Azkaban was as bad as his last stay there. Kingsley Shacklebolt had toured the Muggle prison system while working with the Muggle Prime Minister, and he had come back with some novel ideas. Words like _rehabilitation_ , _cruel and unusual_ , _minimum_ _and maximum security_ abounded. There were no Dementors, and even the most vile of offenders were treated reasonably well.

Lucius himself was in a civilised wing called Protective Custody. There were, after all, any number of Death Eaters here who would happily see him go the way of Narcissa. Lucius might not have minded all that much, but he had a son to consider.

_Draco. Draco. Draco._

He had burned Narcissa, he remembered dimly, staring down at his hands. Narcissa had loved his hands, and he loved them because she did. They were well-manicured and precise, and when he thought of her, he thought of his hand on her cheek or her hip or her thigh. And in the end, he had sent her off into the dawn with a precise flick of his hand that he couldn't even see through tears, and a husky, " _Incendio_." It had been quick and unceremonious but he hadn't known how long it would be before they were seized, and he wouldn't leave her there alone. There were too many people in that castle who'd hated them all. He wouldn't see her strung up or mutilated or worse.

He'd gone to find Nymphadora because she had been kind to him and because he hadn't known what else to do. They were still there like that when the Aurors came, a pieta of two widows and a motherless son, and it had derailed them a little. Nymphadora was, of course, one of their number, Alastor Moody's protégé, no less.

It hadn't stopped them from throwing him into Azkaban. He hadn't thought it would.

Draco, at least, had been given some benefit of the doubt, largely thanks to Potter. He was under house arrest at the Manor. Lucius was glad. That was a stigma the boy didn't need; the Dark Mark on his arm was bad enough. He'd grieved in dry heaves behind closed doors about that. If he'd just _been there_ , if he hadn't been in this wretched prison, maybe it wouldn't have happened.

Draco had the distinction of being the only surviving Death Eater never to set foot in Azkaban. Severus might have joined him, but Severus was dead. Lucius couldn't quite believe that the old bastard was gone; Severus had always seemed invincible. How very like him to play his own game, right to the very end. And the cost to Severus for protecting Draco, it had turned out, was very high.

_Draco. Draco. DracoDracoDraco._

He spenta lot of time sleeping. His jailers were supposed to care about his welfare, and they cajoled him to come and get fresh air (what fresh air? It was the North _fucking_ Sea), but he turned his face to the wall, back to his dreams of Narcissa.

He wasn't sure, strictly, if they were dreams or constructs of his own imagination. Surely dreams wouldn't be this clamouring, this demanding and incessant. Most likely they'd be less graphic, too. There was something vaguely indecent about having a hard-on for a dead woman, but they'd been lovers right up to the end, lost themselves in one another when there was no safety and no hope left, and it was a fucking hard habit to break. Especially when he only had himself and his hand and a dark room for company. He was desolate, shocked, and within striking distance of madness, and there in the dark, he could almost reach out and touch her. Like she was just on the other side of the bed.

"Fuck me, darling," she crooned in his mind (and of course Narcissa had never said anything of the sort; she was an adoring and energetic lover, but not a vocal one), "make me warm." And in the end he _had_ made her warm, he'd burned her to a crisp, and he didn't know how to reconcile the living thing in his arms with the dead thing ablaze on the ground. Not without losing what was left of his mind.

And he had a son to consider.

_Draco. DracoDraco. Draco, dammit, Draco!_

His tenuous grip was slipping, he could _feel_ it, and he screamed out. Clawed at the walls. Clawed out at his retreating mind.

Sanity fell and madness rose, and a quiet, serene part of his mind sat down like a king on his throne, next to the pile of ash that had been his wife, and waited for it to be over.

 

* * *

 

"What you need," Nymphadora said, "is to be out of this place."

"Really," Lucius drawled. It was a weak drawl, and he hated it, hated the pathetic sound of it, but he went on. "I really would never have guessed."

"Sarcasm doesn't become you," she said mildly. "A withering reference to my blood status, my unnatural marriage, or both - that's more your style."

"Consider yourself withered." He closed his eyes and turned back to face the wall.

He was in the hospital wing at Azkaban, he'd figured out that much for himself. What he hadn't worked out was why Nymphadora Tonks (or Lupin) was here by his side. Who on earth had owled her?

As if in answer to his question, she said, "Kingsley asked me to come. You're still notionally an employee of the Ministry, and since Draco is under house arrest and unable to see to you, he sent me in Draco's place." She added, "It isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. Ministry aside, my mother and I are Draco's closest living relatives - yours too, legally at least, unless you have some blood relations I don't know about."

Lucius shook his head. He didn't. "Well, _niece_ ," he mocked, looking back at her, "you've done your duty."

"It isn't a social call," she said briskly. "I took the liberty of reminding Kingsley that you could have run, and didn't."

Frankly, it hadn't even occurred to him, in his confusion after Narcissa's death, and if it had, it would have been futile anyway. If he'd made it to France, maybe, but Apparating such a long way would have been beyond his reach at the best of times, let alone under conditions of trauma with Draco Side-A-Long. Just about the only wizard in the world who could have done it was Severus, and by then, as he'd found out later, Severus was dead.

But if that was seen as a point in his favour, who was he to argue? "I suppose."

"And he did agree that your imprisonment in the absence of a conviction so soon after losing Narcissa was, perhaps, unnecessarily harsh. Especially when there was evidence that it was doing you harm."

"It seems I should have succumbed to impending madness some time ago," he said dryly.

Nymphadora softened. Reached out and placed a cool hand on his brow. It was the first time he'd been touched in forever, and he felt something in him shatter, had to bite back a whimper (oh, the _humiliation_ ), sound of a drowning man clutching at salvation.

"You're not mad, Lucius. You're grieving." She went on more quietly, "I've been thinking of you. I would have liked to come sooner."

He said bitterly, "Of course you would."

"I'm your only witness," she said sharply. "Kingsley understands shades of gray, but not everyone on the Wizengamot does. As it is, they're making me testify under Veritaserum. Some didn't want me to testify at all." Merlin, he thought, he really was doomed. "It's best," she said carefully, "if our families remain at a distance. Understand?"

He nodded. He did.

"They'll let you go on the basis of an Unbreakable Vow that you'll submit willingly for trial. It's part of the Bail And Bond pilot program." Lucius nodded in recognition; another of Kingsley's Muggle-inspired innovations. It kept low-risk prisoners out of Azkaban pending trial; Draco was one of the first to be Bailed. "You'll have to pull yourself together enough to walk out. St Mungo's won't take you if you can't. They don't have room."

Lucius considered this. Ticking over what would need to be done. His mind was like an un-oiled machine; it took longer than it should. "I need to clean up," he said at last.

She nodded. "Of course. I brought you a change of clothes. They're over on the other chair. There's water there, too. They won't allow magic or potions in here, or let you near a razor, so you won't be able to shave. But they did let me bring in some Muggle products. Use the shampoo and conditioner, in that order, in place of hair potions. And soap is, well, soap. That one's universal."

He was rather touched. "Thank you," he said. The words sounded rusty and awkward on his lips.

She nodded, her lips pursed into a look that was both grim and kind, and she left him.

He wrestled with the task of making himself presentable. It was a slightly surreal thing to do. Partly because he did it without magic, and partly because it was so _ordinary_. His wife was _dead_ , but he was sitting there getting knots out of his hair? It didn't seem right that something so shocking could coexist with something so mundane.

Finally, he was done.

They made the Vow, Bonded by one of his jailers, and he felt that same unsettling drowning feeling when they joined hands. Part of it - a big part - was completely impersonal, but part of it was her white-blonde hair like Narcissa's and part of it was those dark eyes, haunted by a grief that mirrored his own.

"The Chief Jailer has a Floo," she said when she released his hand. "You'll be taken there from here, and you can Floo straight home. You won't see me again 'til the trial."

He nodded. Said in that same rusty voice, "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet," she said. Clearly, she shared his opinion of his chances before the Wizengamot. "But Lucius?"

He met her gaze. "Yes?"

"If I do get you out of this, you owe me dinner. Right there in your parlour, as good as any bloody pureblood."

 _If only you knew what that parlour had seen_ , he thought, but he didn't say so. He settled for a curt nod of his head.

Nymphadora frowned, and she left him there.

 

* * *

 

"Can you tell the Wizengamot about your relationship with Lucius Malfoy?"

Nymphadora could have given Narcissa a run for her money, Lucius thought, sitting there serenely with her chin lifted high. Not that there was much that was Narcissa-like about her, in her steampunk mix of witchly and Muggle clothes. If she had any brains at all, she had done it on purpose, but he suspected from his limited observations of her during his days working at the Ministry that she dressed like that all the time.

Despite her efforts, her Black bloodline was particularly striking today. It was there in her pale, heart-shaped face and the defiant fix of her jaw. He considered it a promising sign about his state of mind that he could notice it without dwelling on it.

"I wouldn't say there was a relationship at all, really," she said. "I had never even met him before the Battle of Hogwarts, and I've seen him only once, in a professional capacity, since. We're legally related, through his marriage to my maternal aunt, but my mother and my aunt became estranged before I was born."

"And why was that?" Kingsley asked.

"Both the Blacks and the Malfoys disapproved of my mother's choice of husband. He was a Muggle-born."

Lucius noted the tactic, turning it over in his mind and filing it away without much conscious thought. Nymphadora had already hinted that Kingsley was, to some degree, in their corner - out of some sort of sense of fair play, he supposed. They had clearly planned this line of questioning, to emphasise Nymphadora's estrangement to the maximum degree.

"On the other hand, he assisted you after your husband's death. What are your feelings about him now? Do they colour your testimony?"

"Under Veritaserum?" Nymphadora snorted. "I doubt it." She softened. "I feel an affinity with him, I suppose. We were both widowed that day. But then, many were."

"Madam Lupin, what is your opinion of Mr Malfoy's character?" asked Minerva McGonagall with interest. Much of the Wizengamot had been killed during the war; various esteemed surviving witches and wizards now took it in turns. How very like Minerva to focus on character. Clearly, she had little patience for Kingsley's tour through Nymphadora's feelings.

She said succinctly, "He's proud, strong, a bit pretentious, and harbours beliefs about Muggles and magical creatures that, as a half-blood and the wife of a werewolf, I find personally offensive. Fortunately, he is not on trial for his politics." Minerva moved to speak, but Nymphadora continued, "He is, however, also extremely loyal to the things he holds dear, devoted to family, and capable of great bravery in their defence."

Kingsley spoke. "Madam Lupin," he said, "it has never been disputed that Mr Malfoy was an associate of Lord Voldemort during both wars. He claimed to be under the Imperius Curse during the First War, and having been found innocent on those grounds, he cannot be tried again." Another Muggle innovation called double jeopardy, Lucius had learned. "However, his actions in the Second War appeared voluntary. Can you explain that?"

"Fear," she said simply. "I saw ample evidence in Lucius Malfoy's memories that he was solely motivated by fear for Narcissa and Draco." Lucius winced; it sounded weak. He knew it was ridiculous to be sensitive about something - anything - that could free him from a life in Azkaban, but he hated it anyway.

Arthur Weasley said scathingly, "Madam Lupin, I'm sure many Death Eaters could claim quite truthfully that they were terrified of Lord Voldemort. Fear was his stock in trade. What makes Malfoy so special?" There were nods all around; Lucius felt cold. He couldn't even begin to think of a reply in his own defence.

Nymphadora said clearly, "Firstly, Lucius Malfoy was with _us_ that night. All three of the Malfoys defected from the Dark Lord, and importantly, they defected before the battle turned in our favour. Draco and Narcissa both saved Harry Potter, and Lucius saved me from Bellatrix Lestrange - his own sister-in-law, who had a personal grudge against me. He could just as easily have handed me over to her."

Lucius worked to keep his face free of expression, but he was intrigued. He knew her first sentence to be a lie, and he believed she did, too. He hadn't been actively _against_ the Order, but with them? Certainly not. His only loyalty had been to his family.

Which raised the bloody fascinating question of how Nymphadora had tricked the Veritaserum. He could feel his mind working, turning it over, interested. It felt good to be interested in something again.

Nymphadora was still speaking. "Secondly, and I think this is crucial, Lucius Malfoy's fear was for his family, not himself. I think you'll find that was not the norm among the Death Eaters, who were well-known for turning on their own. As proof, I will remind you that he went unarmed into a castle full of people who would have seen him dead, in hopes of saving his wife and son. And thirdly, while he harboured offensive beliefs about Muggles, they did not motivate his actions while he was in the company of the Death Eaters. Those actions were motivated solely by his sense of duty as a husband and father."

Lucius felt a swell of admiration, and a muted sort of amusement (and that felt good, too, now that he thought about it). She'd played their sensibilities like a violin. If there was one thing the Wizengamot went for, it was the slightly old-fashioned masculine drive to provide and protect. The fact that it was _true_ barely entered into his assessment; in his experience, people overlooked the most strategically helpful move for the move that made sense to them.

Even now, he could see the nods. He could almost feel the tide turning. Allowed himself to hope against hope that she'd actually done it, she'd pulled it off.

She had. Lucius was freed by a comfortable margin.

He looked for her when it was over, but she was gone.

 

COMING IN PART 2: ANGER


	2. Anger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucius finds an unexpected ally in a fellow outcast, his buffer against anger turned outward and in. Meanwhile, Tonks struggles with the imperfect reality of her marriage - and the ways that Lucius is starting to make her forget.

**[ANGER – LUCIUS]**

 

His triumph was short-lived.

He was in the Wizengamot Secretariat, standing over the Registrar's desk, looking over the papers authorising his release. Nymphadora had departed his mind entirely. This was the serious business of freedom, and no intriguingly-sneaky steampunk half-blood not-niece could distract him from that.

Kingsley Shacklebolt, however, was a different story.

He was standing too, quill poised over the papers, when he said casually, "So, Lucius, when do you think you'll be returning to work?"

The world seemed to stop rotating for a moment. Lucius looked up at him, slowly. He could almost feel the shackles tightening around his wrists all over again. "You're not serious."

"I'm very serious, Lucius. This whole situation with you. Divided loyalties. Imprisonment then acquittal. It's messy. I don't _like_ mess. The _Ministry_ doesn't like mess. Not to mention that it's a little embarrassing that a known Death Eater worked for the Ministry in a senior capacity throughout the period between the wars. If anyone ever bought the Imperius story about the First War before, they certainly don't now."

"And you think the solution is for me to work for you again?" he queried. Arched an eyebrow and peered at the Minister like he was peering at a rather strange specimen. And come to think of it...

Kingsley's mouth broadened into a smile. It was mirthful, genuine, but there was something steely about it, too, all white straight teeth against dusky skin. "Certainly I do. At least, if you were to do so in a way that ended all doubt about your redemption."

There was nothing good that could come from _that_ , Lucius thought. "I'm _quite_ sure you have something in mind. Something to do with telling you where the proverbial bodies are buried, perhaps?"

"Oh, nothing as gauche as that, Lucius. Something with a bit more class. At this point, it's probably better for the bodies to stay buried, in any event. I was thinking you could head up something to do with Muggle relations. Not the whole unit – no one would accept that – but a special project. Family reunions. Perhaps you could begin close to home, with Auror Tonks. That would be very good PR, I think."

"And if I decline?"

Kingsley looked down at the release papers. "You know, I don't think this quill works properly."

Lucius groaned. "Oh, Merlin, Azkaban is looking more attractive by the minute. Fine." He watched as Kinsgley signed the papers with a satisfied grin. It was a symbolic gesture, of course; Kingsley could make those papers disappear if he really wanted to, and at this point, Lucius wouldn't put it past him. He had the uncomfortable feeling he'd underestimated Kingsley – either that, or Kingsley had learned a lot about politics during his tour of the Muggle Ministry. "So did you manipulate Nymphadora, or did the two of you cook it up together?"

Kingsley looked mildly surprised. "Oh, I played her, of course." His smile softened, and Lucius realised that Kingsley admired her. "But you underestimate her if you think she didn't play me just as much. Merlin knows what she saw there in your memories, Lucius, but she wanted you free. It was a win-win."

"For you two, perhaps," he said with ill-grace. He had benefitted too, of course, but right now he didn't feel like it.

Kingsley laughed. "I didn't say win-win-win."

He was still laughing when Lucius left.

* * *

"Wotcher, Lucius!"

Nymphadora's voice travelled down the hall, echoing off the black tiles of Remembrance Plaza.

Despite his somewhat reluctant inclination to warmth towards her, Lucius gritted his teeth as she approached. He disliked informality, and public familiarity, and gracelessness. Nymphadora, tripping over her own bloody feet, was currently demonstrating all three.

"Good morning, Nymphadora," he said pointedly.

"Tonks," she corrected, just as pointedly.

"Miss Tonks, then. Or Madam Tonks. Or do you prefer Auror?" He had no idea what the protocol was for titles and widowed women; he had a vague idea that technically she was a Dowager, but the idea of Dowager and Nymphadora Tonks in the same sentence was absurd.

"Just Tonks. Call me Tonks."

Lucius snorted. "I will do nothing of the sort. It would be improper. I will call you Nymphadora, or Miss or Madam or Auror Tonks, or Madam Lupin. You choose."

"Dora, then," she countered. "Normally only in the family, but for your sensibilities, I will make an exception." Her smirk made it clear what she thought of his sensibilities.

He refrained from pointing out that they _were_ family, at least so far the law was concerned. "Dora is sensible and boring, which you are not. Nymphadora is unconventional and charming and altogether more suitable."

"Well, of course, Lucius, your assessment trumps twenty-five years of personal preference. Why didn't I see that sooner?" There was mischief in her voice.

"Oh, good," he said silkily, "I'm so glad we got that settled. _Nymphadora_."

She choked a little. "Arrogant bastard."

Having won a round with her, he was inclined to be forgiving. "Quite," he said. "Now, I believe we have some business to attend to. Will you walk with me?"

Her brow puckered in confusion. "Sure. What business?"

They boarded the elevator; it was empty. "Dinner, for one thing. I believe that was the deal?"

Nymphadora reddened; she might be informal and familiar, but she was clearly not outright rude. "Lucius, I didn't mean that. I wouldn't invite myself like that. And anyway, I didn't honestly think I'd get you acquitted at all."

"I realise that. However, I am under orders, as I'm sure you are, to begin my work on family reunions in my own backyard. And I am, in fact, in your debt." A fact that didn't thrill him, but it could be worse. It could be Kingsley.

"Oh, rubbish," she said briskly. "We've just been in a war. Just about everyone is in someone's debt. If we all get hung up on who saved who, no-one will ever get anything done. Harry alone has about fifty life debts, and he's carrying every one of them on his shoulders."

They arrived outside Lucius' office, and he alighted. "Be that as it may, I _would_ like you to come to dinner. Besides, it would be good for Draco. His experience of extended family to date has been rather toxic, and he misses his mother." He said it like she was on a shopping trip in Diagon Alley and not dead and scattered to the four winds; he had found it was the only way he could refer to it without tripping and stammering all over the words. And he wouldn't do that. Not here. Not around people who thought badly of her.

Nymphadora hesitated. Indecision was clear on her face. "Lucius," she said, "that house. Awful things happened there." The elevator started to wobble in protest at the delay, and she stepped out.

"Yes, they did," he said gravely. "How did you know that?"

"Greyback's trial," she said softly. "He was...quite talkative."

He supposed that made sense. Greyback had always struck him as perilously close to insane, although the viciousness that was endemic to his personality made it hard to be sure.

Nymphadora was still looking up at him. She was rattled, and he knew even on short acquaintance that it took a fair bit to rattle her. Had it been Greyback's vicious strain of lycanthropy, as much as his testimony?

He said finally, "Well, as you say, Nymphadora, we've just been in a war. Awful things happened everywhere. Malfoy Manor has been in my family for generations, and I will not be driven from it. It was a place of happiness for me for many years, and I believe it can be again. I would be pleased if you will come, but I will understand if you won't." This last was said only as a matter of form. He believed she was stronger than that, and would have been disappointed to be found wrong.

She shook back her hair, dead white and straight like a unicorn's mane. ( _Like Narcissa's_ , his mind had begun to remark, but he'd cut that thought off and replaced it. _Everything_ reminded him of her, given half a chance; twenty-six years together would do that). That defiant tilt of the chin was back. Almost as though she had sensed the unspoken challenge.

"Of course I'll come," she said. "Besides – Lucius Malfoy hosting a half-blood? This I've got to see."

* * *

"Wotcher, Lucius."

Twice in one day? he thought, looking up from his work. "Wotcher," he mimicked mirthlessly, making the word sound like an obscenity. Nymphadora was leaning against his doorframe, slouching like an awkward little girl.

If she was offended, she didn't show it. "Come down to the dining room with me for lunch," she said without preamble.

"I will not. The dining room is a grubby, unpleasant place to dine. If you insist on eating with me – and I've no idea why, I have it on good authority that I'm _proud and a bit pretentious_ , among other sins – then it will have to be here."

She smirked. "You can't hold what someone says under Veritaserum against them, Lucius. It's quite rude. And surely if you can bring yourself to dine with someone as disreputable as me, the rest of the Ministry isn't much more of a stretch." That interested him; surely among them, he was the disreputable one. Her smile faded, and she went on sourly, "Besides. It will be good PR."

"Ah. So Kingsley put you up to it."

"Well, of course. Not that I object to lunch with you, necessarily, but do you think I like the dining room either?"

He put down his quill, now giving her his undivided attention. "Don't you?" he said with interest. He motioned towards the chair.

She sat. "Of course I bloody don't. Half of them think I'm perverted. Remus was officially classified as a beast. Marrying him was only one step removed from shagging a dog, as far as they're concerned. But they'll still simper about 'Oh, what a pity, dear,' and 'If there's anything I can do.'" He flashed her a grim smile; the mimicry was good. "Half of them want to be your friend, so they can tell their _real_ friends how they're valiantly standing by poor dear Dora. They're parasites, the lot of them."

Lucius leaned forward. Intrigued. He liked this take-no-prisoners Nymphadora. "I don't think you're perverted." Amended, "Well, not for that, anyway. I'm reserving judgment about your clothing choices."

"Very funny. On what grounds?"

He said seriously, "You mean apart from the fact that any thinking person knows lycanthropy is a disability, not a species? Really, Nymphadora, my politics might not be yours, but do you honestly think me stupid?"

She sobered. "No, I never thought that, Lucius." Her anger had fallen away. She looked bereft. "Look, we don't have to do lunch. Not today, anyway. I don't think I'm very hungry."

"You shouldn't skip meals," he reproved. "You're still nursing, I presume?" He remembered that she had a young child; if memory served, it was a boy. Voldemort had been lyrical in his disdain.

She looked up. Said sharply, "What the hell would you know about it? I thought the old families wet-nursed. From elves, no less. And _I'm_ supposed to be the bestial one."

"Most do," he agreed. "We didn't. Narcissa nursed. We had to ward the door from her mother. She'd have been appalled."

Nymphadora arched an eyebrow, but said nothing. He'd surprised her, he thought with satisfaction.

He offered, "I can't stand them, either. I've only been back a week and I'm either too well-groomed or I'm not taking care of myself. If I smile, I'm a cold-blooded bastard. If I don't, I'm brooding. It's intolerable."

Her eyebrow arched higher. Soon it would be in her hair, he thought with amusement. "Lucius Malfoy, caring what random people think?"

"Of course I don't _care_ , but I've still got to get them back on task, otherwise I'd never get anything done. It's exhausting."

She said abruptly, "I do like talking to you. I can say what I think."

"I wouldn't have thought that would be a problem for you," he said dryly.

"Well, no. But you can take it. Most people can't. They need to think everything's right with the world, and they'll try to convince you you're being too sensitive or something. And it's not to make _you_ feel better at all. It's for them."

Lucius thought that was a fair assessment. He concurred, "Not everything _is_ right with the world. Not even now."

"No," she agreed. Held his gaze steadily.

"Fuck it," he said. Got to his feet. "You didn't do anything wrong, and neither did I." That second part was not entirely true, but that wasn't the point for his current purpose. "We're going down to the dining room with our heads held high. Agreed?"

"I thought it was grubby and unpleasant," she smirked up at him. There was unwilling warmth in her voice.

"Be that as it may, the fact that we're not wanted there is a damn good reason to go. Are you coming?"

She did.

* * *

Remembrance Plaza, as the Atrium had been lately re-christened, had never been so populated.

The Magic Is Might statue was gone. The Fountain Of Magical Brethren was also gone, replaced by a large monument. The monument transfigured regularly, into a bust or statue of one person, then another. On the plinth below, a brief biography and note about the circumstances of their death would appear. The names of the war-dead were etched into the black tiles throughout the plaza. There were a lot of them; it made Lucius feel rather ill.

The ceremony marking the official unveiling of the new-look Plaza was on track to be a tearful and sentimental affair. Many people were already hugging and weeping, and the formalities hadn't even begun. He was already regretting bringing Draco, but Narcissa was on the wall somewhere. He could hardly keep the boy away.

"There," Draco whispered, pointing up at a tile set into one of the Floos.

Lucius nodded his head, but gave only a cursory look. Narcissa would have hated this. She despised overt sentimentality. They had spent their lives consciously dismissing what others thought of them, supremely confident in themselves and each other, and to be held up as some kind of a martyr now was incongruous and hypocritical. On both sides.

But it was important to Draco, important that her sacrifice was acknowledged, so he squeezed the boy's shoulder. Made an effort to do it gently. Narcissa had always been the comforting parent, part of their clear division of labour, and now that she was gone he realised he'd never learned to comfort the boy himself.

They stood there stiffly, not saying anything as people milled around. Awkward and silent. He looked around for something – anything – to break the moment. Spotted Nymphadora and figured she was as good as anything for the purpose.

"Nymphadora," he called. She was only a few feet away, but there were two or three layers of people between them, and she looked around her for the source of his voice. He held up a hand so she could see. She made her way over, awkwardly, bumping people and apologising and weaving her way through.

He experienced a brief moment of horror when he noticed the woman following her. It only took a second for the realisation to dawn that the woman was not Bellatrix, but Nymphadora's mother, Andromeda Tonks, but it seemed much longer. A moment of adrenaline and fear and itching for a wand.

Not that Andromeda looked too happy to see him, either. Presumably, not being on the payroll of the Ministry, she was under no instruction to be on good terms.

"Lucius," Nymphadora said with disquieting warmth. Caught up with him and gave him a wink and a quick kiss on the cheek, taking him by surprise. He noted Andromeda's scowl. Realised with amusement that she'd done it to annoy her mother. It occurred to him that her strain of mischief was not unlike his own. It was a comforting buffer. Especially today.

"Nymphadora, _dear_ ," he said, going along with it, "I'm so glad to see you. Even on this saddest of days. Draco, you remember Nymphadora? And this must be your _aunt_ Andromeda." Andromeda's scowl deepened.

"Wotcher, Draco," Nymphadora said more kindly. "How're you holding up there, old thing?"

"It's been awful," Draco said. More blunt than Lucius had ever heard him.

Lucius watched with interest as her hand closed momentarily around the boy's, there and gone too quickly for him to stiffen and shy away. "Yeah, it has," she said, already withdrawing and giving him his space.

The weight seemed to lift off Draco's shoulders, just a little, and Lucius knew a moment of self-doubt. That was all he'd needed? Listening and agreeing? No motivating words, no deep philosophy? Merlin. No wonder Draco was sinking into a depression, if Lucius couldn't manage something as simple as that.

"Where's your mum, Draco? My dad's on the end wall, up high near the monument."

Draco beamed a sad little smile, like he'd been asked to show off his favourite toy. "Up there," he said, nodding his head. There was just a trace of pride in his voice. Something flickered over Andromeda's face, and she peered up, looking for her sister's name.

Lucius gritted his teeth; he knew what he should do. What Narcissa would have wanted. It wasn't something he did well. But he stood alongside her and said quietly, "Narcissa spoke of you warmly, Andromeda. She regretted your estrangement."

Andromeda cocked an eyebrow and looked at him sidelong. "You don't really expect me to believe she approved of my marriage to a Muggle-born."

"She didn't, but she would not, of her own accord, have disowned you for it. I'm sure you can imagine the pressure placed on her to go along with her sister and mother." He went on by way of explanation, "For Malfoys, at least, family trumps everything, even blood status. And Narcissa was more of a Malfoy than a Black."

Andromeda nodded slowly. "Well. Thank you, I suppose," she said awkwardly, giving no hint of her thoughts on the subject of Narcissa. "I should also thank you for my daughter. I understand you were...kind...to her the day we lost Remus."

Oh, that _hurt_ – Lucius could see it in the fix of her jaw. He knew that look. It was common to all three Black sisters, and Nymphadora as well. He murmured a casual acknowledgement. Let the concession pass without fanfare.

"Well," he said, "they'll be starting soon. I imagine you and Nymphadora would like to have your privacy."

At this, Nymphadora's head snapped up. She grasped for his hand, startling him. "Don't go," she whispered. Andromeda stared at her.

Lucius stared at her, too. Realised that she was suddenly pale and drawn. Just barely hanging on to her composure. Everyone was on edge today, that was true, but this was different somehow. Not grief, or not _just_ grief. Her expression was unreadable – except that something wasn't right.

"There's something you haven't told me," he said in a low voice, inching a little closer so she could hear. "Talk to me."

At this, Nymphadora's face flooded with colour, suddenly pink and furious. Eyes damp, but not spilling over. Bitterness tinged her voice. "Remus isn't here. They said he wasn't a wizard, but there are Muggles here. They meant he wasn't a man."

 _Shit_. Lucius felt real anger. These were meant to be the good guys? " _Fuck_ , Dora."

He supposed he should have said something more erudite, but she seemed to understand. "Tell me about it."

Those tears were beginning to streak down her cheeks, and he grabbed her by the shoulders. "Stop it," he said roughly. "Don't you ever let them see they got to you. _Ever_."

She dragged in her breath like a little child, dragging back tears and hitching breaths. Gulped and nodded. It seemed to take everything she had, but she swallowed and stilled her trembling chin and lifted it high like the Black that she was.

At last, she nodded. Swallowed once more, barely perceptible. He let his hands soften on her, then let her go.

"Lucius," Andromeda said in a strangled voice.

Lucius turned. He had quite forgotten about her.

She was looking at him, intensely curious, and Draco too, back and forth from one to the other. She said, hesitantly, "I should get to know Draco. He is, after all, my nephew. That is, if we can agree to disagree on our politics."

Lucius gave a grim smile. "If there's one thing this war has taught us all, Andromeda, it is that slavish adherence to politics is a dangerous thing."

She gave a curt little nod, and they left it at that.

* * *

Contrary to what she obviously thought, Nymphadora was not the first half-blood welcomed into the Malfoy parlour.

"It was probably Severus," he said in response to her query, "but my father may have hosted Voldemort before that. Two of the most powerful wizards in living memory, and both half-bloods." Warming to his theme, he went on, "What people overlook, with all that sentimental Lily Potter fated love affair business, is that Severus was every bit as powerful as the Dark Lord. You name it, he could do it. Fuck, the bastard could _fly_. No one else could do that, except Voldemort. Amazing."

Nymphadora was amused. "So you'll make an exception for _powerful_ half-bloods." There was no rancour in her voice.

"You assume the consideration of blood status comes first and power second. It's less complicated than that. I don't care about wealth and I don't care about social standing and I don't even care about blood. Not in themselves, at least. Those are just the trappings."

She sat forward, elbows on the arm of the Chesterfield. Her chin resting on her hands. Openly intrigued.

He sat back in his matching chair and went on, "I'm a pragmatist. I like _power_. I admire it. The rest of it is just what happens when a powerful person goes about their business. And most half-bloods and Muggle-borns don't have it." At her raised eyebrow, he went on, "It's true, and you know it. For every Voldemort or Snape or Granger – or you, for that matter – there are a hundred unbelievably average half-blooded witches and wizards running shops and apocetharies. It's a waste."

"Purebloods can be weak, too," she pointed out.

"Oh, of course they can, but it's rarer. Arthur Weasley!" he marvelled. "It's an _abomination_ that Molly Prewett ended up with him. Seven children, and only one shows any sign of the Prewett strength at _all_."

"We'll have to agree to differ on that one. I think there are more ways of being strong than just magic."

"I don't disagree with you, necessarily, but in my experience, the kind of strength you mean is even rarer than strong magic."

She smirked at him. "I think you've just been hanging out with the wrong people."

" _That_ ," he said scathingly, "is undeniable."

Dinner was just as animated. They toned down the politics, by unspoken agreement. Draco was younger and would likely take it as a personal criticism. But there was plenty of other fodder for discussion.

She was openly intrigued by the elderly elf who served dinner, for one thing. Leonie had been in the family for generations, had saved their lives more than once. Lucius held forth on his pet theory, that wizarding attitudes to elves were largely an outgrowth of domestic privacy issues. After all, no one worried about shagging in front of their owl, and if an elf was viewed on the same level as a Familiar, the problem was solved.

He was astonished to learn that his former house-elf Dobby had been a topic of discussion among Nymphadora's friends. He was even more astonished to learn that he had been considered a loyal and trustworthy ally of the Order. Lucius' own experience of Dobby had been of chronic disloyalty, and in their situation, trust had been crucial. He'd spent a good deal of his time angry and anxious about the wretched creature, and once the dust had settled, he'd realised that losing Dobby was a relief. Where Leonie was a presence to him, Dobby had only ever been a problem.

It dawned on him that Dobby's disloyalty had been political more than personal – a realisation that hit him right between the eyes.

It was at that point that Draco excused himself from the dining room with a haunted look. Too late, Lucius remembered that Dobby had been here the day Draco covered for Potter. Bellatrix had been at her worst that day, torturing the Granger girl, throwing her dagger at Potter. Come to think of it, that had been how Dobby died.

"Fuck," he said. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." He hung his head, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes like an exhausted child.

Nymphadora apologised, "I'm sorry. It seemed like a safe subject."

Lucius stared up at her. Said hollowly, "Is there any such thing anymore? Is there anything that monster didn't manage to touch?" Wondered if she would reproach him. After all, Voldemort had been _his_ monster.

She just sat quietly. Watching him with grave eyes.

He said abruptly, "Do you remember the House competitions? At Hogwarts?"

"Of course. But it was more of a Gryffindor and Slytherin thing. I was a Hufflepuff. We didn't pay much mind."

Lucius said, "Draco's second year, I was determined to help get Slytherin back on top. I bought the whole of his Quidditch team new brooms." He smiled at the memory. "I dare say it sounds very childish to you, but I wanted him to be able to be proud of something." His gaze followed Draco's path up the stairs. "There's nothing like that for him anymore. The Malfoy name is mud. Slytherins are like second class citizens, even though they were innocent children mostly. No one will hire him." His voice sounded dull and listless, but he became aware of something else beneath the surface, a lazily bubbling feeling that he identified as anger. "Even Narcissa – what she did – is always qualified by the fact that she was a Malfoy. And she died for people who were no better than us. Like those assholes who kept Remus off the wall."

Nymphadora's voice was gentle. "I know."

"Sometimes I hate her for saving Potter," he said in a low voice. He was ashamed of it, but he didn't look away from her gaze. "How fucked up is that? Sometimes I could _kill_ her for doing this to us. And then I remember someone already did."

She reached out across the dining table. Took his hand in hers. "It's all right to be angry with her. By all accounts, she could take it."

He looked away. Said colourlessly, "I suppose." He squeezed her hand a moment, more for her benefit than his, then let go. It wasn't her fault he was a moody old bastard, after all. "Shit, Dora, I don't do this very well. Let's talk about something else. You were a Hufflepuff? I'd have thought you were a Slytherin."

"Sure." Nymphadora withdrew her hand, following his lead. "Why would you think I was Slytherin?" she asked with interest.

"You're mischievous and sly and an utter sneak, that's why. The way you played the Wizengamot, for one thing," he said. "How did you do it?"

"How did I do what?" she echoed.

He gave a sound of irritation. "How did you trick the Veritaserum? Not that I mind."

A smile played around her lips. A wan smile, to be sure, but a smile nonetheless. "How like you to assume deception," she smirked into her Firewhisky, sitting back in Narcissa's high-backed dining chair.

"Nymphadora, you said – and I quote – 'Lucius Malfoy was with _us_ that night.' You know perfectly well that isn't true. I never defected to the Order, only away from the Dark Lord. My only allegiance was my family."

She said, "Lucius, have you ever read the Muggle bible?" He cocked an eyebrow at her, and she shook her head abruptly. "Stupid question. Of course you haven't. Anyway, there's a line in there spoken by Jesus, about enemies and allies." She added, "He's a Muggle religious figure – saviour or prophet, depending on the religion."

He said witheringly, "I _know_ who Jesus is. He's the one they sing about at Yule. The one in the Christmas carols."

She laughed then. It was a discordant sound. He didn't think anyone had laughed here in years. Just for a moment, he remembered Professor Burbage's body lying on the table, just about where she was sitting. "Yes, Lucius," she said, amused, "the one in the Christmas carols. I wouldn't have thought they sing them at _your_ sort of Yule."

He said primly, "Well, I prefer an unadulterated Solstice, but I haven't been living under a rock, contrary to popular belief."

She grinned again, more widely this time. "Anyway. This thing that Jesus said, it gets translated two ways, and each way means the opposite of the other. Some translate it as, 'Whoever isn't with us, is against us.' Others translate it as, 'Whoever isn't against us, is with us.' Personally, I subscribe to the latter."

"So your choice of words to the Wizengamot? That we were _with_ _you_ that night?"

"Was quite deliberate," she agreed. "And in my mind, entirely true. Veritaserum allows for nuances, when administered to a skilled witch or wizard. All the Aurors are trained to manage being interrogated that way. You can't lie, and you can't use technicalities exactly, but you can limit what you say, and you can give an interpretive response, as long as you genuinely believe it. And I do."

He nodded slowly. Frowning. Trying to figure out what to make of this.

She said, "I puzzle you, don't I, Lucius? You thought you had me figured out when you thought I tricked the Wizengamot. You thought I had an angle. And now..."

He shrugged. "I'll figure you out one day, don't you worry." She just laughed.

"Lucius, I would expect nothing less."

* * *

**[ANGER – TONKS]**

Lucius and Draco were waiting for her when she came down for breakfast.

Her mother was there, too, making tea one-handed, Teddy on one hip. He was nine months old now, old enough to try to grasp at things, and she was absent-mindedly extracting spoons and teabags from his little hands without really realising she was doing it.

"Andromeda, let me," Lucius was saying, holding his hands out to Teddy. Andromeda looked at him doubtfully, but handed him over with a wary look.

Tonks stood there leaning against the doorframe for a moment, watching them fondly. Lucius had surprised her with how comfortable he was with Teddy, but then, he was a parent himself. Clearly, her mother hadn't adjusted as well as she had to Lucius Malfoy, Blood Purist With The Patented Better-Than-You Stare, playing babysitter to her half-blooded son-of-a-werewolf Metamorphagis child. She had learned that if you were a Malfoy, it was all right to _do_ something nice, preferably grudgingly so, but to be seen as doing so was intolerable.

She became aware that her mother was watching her, with a troubled look on her face. She cleared her throat, officially declaring her presence.

"Nymphadora," Lucius said, turning, "I hope you don't mind us stopping in." He had never been here before; she always went to the Manor. No particular reason; it had just happened that way. She wondered if he had ever been in a house so small and shabby as the one she had shared with Remus. Oh well, she shrugged mentally, his house was big and grand, but so far as she knew, hers had never been the scene of the Avada Kedavra.

"Of course not," she said. "I set the wards to let you in weeks ago. You can Apparate straight in." Andromeda shot her an accusing look. Tonks ignored her.

The look that flashed over Lucius' expression was oddly gratified. She supposed trust was a rare thing in his world. Without coming right out and saying so, most people had managed to make perfectly clear what they thought of Lucius and his so-called rehabilitation; Special Projects was the place where Ministry careers went to die. The Family Reunions effort was token at best, and not through any recalcitrance on his part, either.

"We wanted to tell you the good news," Lucius was saying over Teddy's head. Gently extracting his hair from the baby's chubby little fingers, she noted with fresh warmth.

Draco spoke. "I got a job at the Ministry." There was shy pride in his voice.

She and Lucius exchanged watchful glances, and she knew what he was thinking. The Ministry was a poisonous place to work, especially for a Malfoy. But Draco had been morose and paralysed for six months now, and he didn't have a lot of other options. It was the lesser of all possible evils.

She went to him and gave him a little peck on the cheek. He was happy and relaxed enough that he allowed it without stiffening first. He didn't always. "Congratulations, Draco. I'm really pleased."

"Yes, Draco, congratulations," Andromeda echoed with genuine warmth. Her mistrust did not extend to Draco anymore, if it ever had.

"Thanks, Dromeda. It's only a stepping stone." Draco hastened to explain. "Frankly, my promotion prospects there are small. But I can start to rebuild my reputation, at least. In a year or two I can figure out what I really want to do."

It broke her heart a little, the way he casually accepted his place at the bottom of the heap. It was such an un-Malfoy thing to do. Behind him, Lucius' expression was hot with fury and hurt and shame, and it hurt her to watch.

"It's a good first step," Tonks said kindly. "It'll be good for you. Besides, Astoria Greengrass works there. That's something." She winked at him.

Draco coloured, but didn't reply.

"Well," Lucius said, "we should get moving. We don't want to be late on his first day."

Tonks nodded. "I'll be along later. I need to feed Teddy before I go." She went to him and took the baby from his arms.

He took his time handing him over. Lingered close to her, nodding to Draco, waiting by the door. Said in a low voice, "He'll be on your floor. Will you watch over him?"

She looked up at him. Locked her gaze on his. "You know I will." She gave his hand a companionable squeeze, trying to put all the tangled hurt and compassion she felt for him into it. The tendon on his neck flickered, but he only nodded and pulled away.

She watched them go, frowning, and not only out of worry for Draco. She was conscious of her mother's eyes on her. She waited.

"You let him call you Nymphadora."

Well, there it was. The hippogriff in the room. She was surprised it hadn't come up sooner, but her mother had worked very hard over the last six months _not_ to talk about Lucius.

"It seemed easier," Tonks said mildly. "Have you ever tried to make Lucius Malfoy do anything he didn't want to do?"

Andromeda arched an eyebrow. "My daughter, beaten in a battle of wills?"

"I'd say we're equals in the strong-willed stakes. I gave way on my own terms." Her mother made a choking sound, and Tonks said, "Oh, Mum, you're positively _purple_. Go on, sputter out whatever it is you're dying to say."

Andromeda only said again, "You let him call you _Nymphadora_ ," and refused to be drawn on it further.

* * *

Lucius had wormed his way into her life, little by little, or maybe it was that she had wormed her way into his.

Their dinners were already weekly ones, and soon became more often than that. It wasn't always Lucius; sometimes Draco would turn up in her little kitchen for breakfast, munching away on toast as he lovingly schemed his pursuit of Astoria Greengrass.

Other changes were incremental. Lucius filed a request with the Floo Network Authority to directly link their homes. The same day, Tonks filed Form C412 (Conflict of Interest), and removed herself from the team of Aurors responsible for precautionary surveillance of former Death Eaters. She described the conflict of interest as "familial affection." It was an awkward, clunky way of describing the indescribable. Lucius was a snarky, irrepressible bastard, even now, but he was _her_ bastard, dammit.

There was talk – she knew that. Hilariously, it was divided between linking her to Lucius and Draco. In a weird way, it made sense; she was slightly closer in age to Draco, and Draco was open about his enthusiasm about Tonks, who was, after all, a distinct improvement on the late-but-not-lamented Bellatrix.

The Ministry had a surprisingly sophisticated betting pool, headed up by an enterprising young clerk on the inside and Mundungus Fletcher on the outside. The bookmakers slightly favoured Lucius, pointing to her past marriage to an older man. Tonks could not resist stirring the pot; she placed a series of bets in both directions, watching the odds zigzag in response. Lucius was not amused, but he _was_ a keen businessman, so he placed a number of bets of his own through third parties and profited handsomely by selling them on the secondary market. They felt no qualms about profiteering; it was bloody tasteless for there to be a pool at all with their spouses only six months in the ground. Finally, Mundungus reset the odds and barred them both from further bets.

They talked long into the night, staring into the fire at his house or hers. It was their confessional, place to know and be known. He told her about his struggle to make a career at the Ministry after the First War, about his obsession with accumulating wealth, so that if the Dark Lord returned, Narcissa and Draco could just disappear. About how Narcissa had finally sat him down and told him he was destroying their marriage, and anyway, they were never going to leave him, so he might as well just get used to it.

She told him about the way she and Remus had married, hurried little wartime wedding, Handfasted by Mad-Eye in their everyday clothes, and she never dreamed of a fairytale wedding but she hated the hole-and-corner feel about it. She'd put a brave face on it, told Remus she was happy just to be married, but really, it was important to her to be loved publicly, to be acknowledged, and she couldn't explain why. She told him that she hated the way Remus was Apparated Side-A-Long to the cemetery in Hogsmeade for a hasty burial alongside hundreds of others, because there were too many bodies and too many people desperate to reunite with kin and the Floo network couldn't cope. It reminded her of their wedding, quick and hole-and-corner and she hated it.

He told her how Narcissa was every bit as imperial and arrogant as he was, and he loved her that way, because as far as he was concerned she was the best fucking person in the whole damn world. People who didn't think that were fools who didn't love enough, but if you scratched the surface hard enough, almost everyone was an arrogant asshole who thought the world revolved around them. The only difference was, he and Narcissa were supremely confident and happy with their own company and each other's, their best and only shelter from a hard old world, so they didn't give a damn who knew it or despised them for it.

They were a strange little family, she thought, and not at all the kind Kingsley had once had in mind. Kingsley admired her, she believed, but he had never really understood the stigma she lived with. He had never realised that they would bond over their outsider status.

She and Lucius were a disastrous experiment, long since abandoned.

She kind of liked it that way.

* * *

It was, she supposed, quite inevitable.

It happened one day as she moved to leave his office. He followed her to tell her something or other, some afterthought. His hair was a bit rumpled and she loved him like that, a bit disreputable and untamed. His hand was on the wall beside her head, and it was one of those moments out of a Muggle movie, eyes locking, casually close proximity suddenly not so casual. Curiosity and heat passing between them on the air.

He looked startled, like it had honestly never occurred to him. Perhaps it hadn't. He'd never really courted as such; his marriage was arranged. His only adult relationship had happened around him, a happy imposition accepted without protest.

It had occurred to her. Intellectually, at least, she had wondered.

She dropped her gaze. Turned to the door and put her hand on the doorknob.

"Talk to me," he said, his voice ragged.

She turned back to him. Looked up at him reluctantly. His gaze was penetrating, insistent.

She admitted in a low voice, "I love that you're making me forget him. And I hate that you're making me forget him."

He looked at her intently. Graver than she'd ever seen him. Deep creases above his eyebrows. "I'm not ready to forget either."

"Lucius," she whispered. Bruised and hurting, breath hitching on his name. She slid her arms up around his shoulders, tender, loose and undemanding. Her eyes shut tight as he held her too.

She felt the shift, felt the change from long to too-long, felt their bodies shift and fit together. He pulled away like he'd been burned.

"Go," he rasped. "Please go."

* * *

Their happily simpatico existence became brittle after that.

Oh, they still ate together, still exchanged confidences long into the night (although possibly sitting just a little further apart, possibly drinking just a little less). Still shielded each other from a hard old world. Still ribbed and teased each other. He about her Muggle clothes and her clumsiness, she about his insufferable attitudes to...well...everything.

But something about their confidences changed, too. Lucius challenged her, where once he had just listened. Tonks reproved him for his various compromises over the years, although she had the tact, at least, not to reproach Narcissa. They were rubbing against each other, raw surfaces causing friction, and she didn't mean to do it but she didn't know how to stop it. She thought it was like grinding against each other through their clothes, enough to get raw and sore, but not enough for any kind of release.

She told him that Remus was a good man, and she'd loved him for that. Lucius said impatiently that that was rubbish; lots of good people were thoroughly unlikeable, and lots of perfectly vile people loved their kin, and good had nothing to do with it. He demanded to know why she'd _really_ loved Remus.

And she didn't have an answer.

That was what did it, what made something snap inside her. She was on her feet, standing over him in front of his goddamned Chesterfield. Face blistering hot with angry tears. Suddenly ranting. Searching for ways to hurt and to wound.

"It's _your_ fault that he's gone," she flared, and she saw real hurt flit across his face, knew she was being mean and hard and unfair, but she couldn't seem to stop herself. "All you bloody Death Eaters. Good people died, children too, and for what? So you could prove that you were better than everyone else? How fucking messed up is that?"

She was towering over him, and abruptly, he got to his feet, standing in her space. "Nymphadora," he began, but she stayed him with a scornful sound.

"Just save it, Lucius. It may come as a great shock to you, but you rut and shit and piss and all the rest of it just like all of us common folk. And you know what's even more obscene? That it isn't about magic at all. You hated Arthur Weasley before he ever helped Muggles. He's pureblood as far back as anyone can remember, but he's poor, so you look down your nose at him."

Lucius was angry, she could tell. It was tightly controlled, but it was there. He said coldly, "Yes, I damn well do. He's an able-bodied man who could advance himself, support his family decently, and he doesn't. But he was quite happy for Molly to pump out seven children and raise them without help. One of the strongest witches of her generation, a Prewett, and slaving in that house! She deserved better."

"Remus and I were poor, too," she snapped. "I suppose you have some choice words about that, as well. As I recall, you contributed substantially to his unemployment."

"Remus was different, and yes, I did. I didn't want a werewolf around my son. Gods, woman, Remus very nearly infected Severus when they were boys, so you'll have to forgive me if I didn't put much stock in Dumbledore's precautions. That doesn't mean I didn't understand his plight. He wasn't able-bodied – don't get your damn hackles up, he _wasn't_ – and you knew that going in and you had a career of your own. That's quite different to Arthur and Molly."

She gave a sound of frustration. "You've got an answer for everything, don't you?" she marvelled.

"No," he retorted furiously, "just a point of view. But you didn't think I had one of those, did you? You thought I was just an ugly bigot who had never given a thought to what I believed. Don't you think, somewhere around the hundredth atrocity committed at Voldemort's hand, that maybe I took a good hard look at myself? Don't you think that all those beliefs of mine that you so thoroughly despise might actually have reasons, good reasons even, despite not being yours?"

"Well, if that's so, then you didn't look hard enough," she snapped. Staring up at him, close and looming over her. Making her feel things, anger and guilt and other things she didn't want to admit to.

Something dark flitted over his features then. "Nymphadora," he said, his voice full of warning. "Stop this. Now. I care for you, but I will not be your punching bag."

It was his caring that did it, so unsentimental and real and utterly Lucius, and it pushed her too hard towards things she didn't want to face, and she had to lash out before she pulled him close. Her hand connected with his face with an ugly sound, and he caught her wrist in his hand before she could do it again. Held her with eyes that were steely blue, flashing anger and worry in turns.

It was like a splash of cold water over her. She felt the blood drain from her face. Horrified. Brought her free hand to her mouth. Gave a ragged, hitching sound, like a little child choking back shuddering sobs.

At this, he released her wrist, and, shaking, she raised her hand to his cheek. Touched him with trembling fingertips. There was no mark, but he was warm under her fingers.

"Oh, _Lucius_ ," she said, the words skittering out on jagged breaths. It was less the slap that undid her; more the ugly accusations thrown helter-skelter at the best thing in her life. "What have I become?"

Apparently judging that the ugly moment had passed, Lucius softened. Still watchful, but the fury was gone from his eyes as quickly as it had come. "You're angry," he said, not unkindly. "But you're still you."

Her fingers lingered on his cheek, and, impulsively, she leaned in and kissed him there tenderly. "I'm sorry," she whispered, her lips brushing against him. "I'm so sorry."

She felt his cheek turn against hers. Felt the infinitesimal shift, for her and for him, from the known to the unknown. She was suddenly aware of him, his flesh gold in the firelight and filling her vision, warm and electric under her lips. He drew in his breath, then let it go, warm on her neck, rippling against her in a shaking sigh.

They both paused for a long moment, faces still, cheekbones touching, intimate, not moving. Waiting to see if either would pull away. And she did pull back, just a little, but only enough to graze her cheek along his jaw, towards his mouth. She was drowning in him. Didn't want it to stop. Didn't want the gossamer threads holding them together to break.

Finally, she was close enough to his mouth that his ragged breaths mixed with hers. Their eyes locked on one another. Hesitantly, he weaved his hand into her hair. His fingers danced there, then tightened on her neck, just a fraction. A question.

She gave a tiny nod. Wondered if her expression was as wary, as curious, as nakedly hungry as his.

He leaned in. Kissed her so slowly that it was like crumbling parchment under her lips. She opened up for him, her mouth soft and pliant. Something about surrender, about letting go completely. Not with anyone, but with him, because he was strong and solid and he was always there.

He broke the kiss, but didn't draw away. "Nymphadora. You know I love you," he whispered against her lips. He said it like something that cost him, and she supposed in a way it did. For both of them. It was bartered with grief and guilt.

"Same," she said. Somehow managed to put more into that single word than she ever had in three.

He lifted his gaze to look at her. "You're sure about this?"

She wasn't, but she would always wonder, if she didn't. She would wonder what it was to be with someone who was as strong and fearless as she. She would wonder about that voice and those eyes and the way he didn't flinch from the worst of her and the way he made her meet him halfway.

She nodded, and he took her hand, the one she'd lifted to touch his cheek. Kissed the heel of her palm, his gaze never leaving hers. Then her wrist, so slowly and reverently that it was like he was inside her. With a tiny moan, low sound of longing, she sank down onto the couch, staring at him as he sank to the floor between her knees and tugged her up against him, so that she looked down on his upturned face and held it between her hands. His mouth was slow and questing. Like he was filing away every part of her in his memory.

This was a different kind of intimacy, one she'd never had. One that he'd learned, she thought, from twenty-six years of unquestioned love and unwavering commitment.

 _This is what it's like to be with someone who stays_ , she thought, awful faithless words shunted quickly aside.

"Make love to me, Lucius," she said, and she'd never used those words in her life, but they were the _right_ words. Making love with Lucius wouldn't be girlish and romantic. It would be total self-abandonment to someone who would do the same, and it exhilarated and terrified her in turns.

He drew her closer, one hand slipping under her jacket, around her waist, as his lips claimed hers. This kiss was surer, insistent, and she tugged her arms free of the jacket and worked the pair of buttons at his neck free. Moved down to the brooch at the base of his neck, holding his dress shirt together.

His hand found hers, and stayed her. "Let me," he said in a low voice. Then, "It was – a gift."

 _From Narcissa,_ she thought. She let go. Watched him a moment, then fumbled with her necklace. Stared at it for a long moment, then, slowly, took off her wedding ring and slipped it onto the chain. Put it on the side table next to his brooch. Her fingers lingered a long moment before she finally let it go.

"You don't have to," he said, but she shook her head, looking back up at him.

"I won't do this looking over my shoulder for him." Her eyes were suddenly wet, but she smiled and nodded, too. "I want this."

He nodded. Understanding perfectly. Of course he did. He gathered her up against him, tender once more, covering her mouth and her jaw and her neck in tiny kisses. Filling her world with him until the shadows between them had lifted and she wanted him all over again, until she drew herself up to kiss him hard and thread possessive hands through his hair.

He tugged her down to straddle him on the floor, firmer and surer. Managed to work her shirt free and drag it over her head, leaving just jeans and a pink bra, and she didn't think from the look on his face that he'd say a bad word about Muggle clothes ever again. He'd taken his dress shirt off with the brooch, and she slid her hands over his crisp white undershirt. Tugged it out of his trousers and managed to get his buttons free. Pushed linen folds apart to run questing fingertips over his chest. He drew her in closer, flesh to flesh, and kissed her, hard. Suddenly demanding and intense. She gasped, pulling back then darting forward, shocked then hungry.

This was the real Lucius, she thought, lurking there under the hesitation and the warmth, just waiting for her to catch up. His love could be tender, but beneath it was steel, and it rocked her but she wanted it, all of it, wanted something uncompromising, a bedrock, a cornerstone. It unlocked a hunger in her that she'd never even known about, and she was shivering, kissing him urgently, unfastening the snap at the top of her jeans. He was helping her, fingers brushing as she got the zip open for him, and sliding down, his thumb finding her warm and slick. She rested her forehead against his and stared down between them, her breaths ragged, his name skittering along her lips in staccato as she rocked against him with exquisite need.

"Come for me," he coaxed in that low silky voice. "I want to see you let go."

He didn't know, couldn't know how impossible that was. She'd always been the strong one. Come for him, yes. Let go, lose control? She didn't know how.

Something of this must have shown in her face, because he used his free hand to pull her into a kiss. "Like this," he said.

Somehow it was explanation enough, and she found herself gripping his shoulders, kissing him hard and deep, whispering into his mouth all the things she could never bring herself to say aloud, things about surrender and belonging and owning and being owned. She was shivering and clutching and falling against him, falling into him, and somehow he was there to catch her.

He lowered her down on the floor as the shudders faded away, never releasing her lips. Seeming to understand that she needed to stay connected. They wrestled her jeans and knickers off together, and she reached for him, tugging him down on top of her, barely giving him time to unfasten his trousers. Choked out his name in need as he pressed against her, as her body made way for him, cautious at first after nine months untouched, then opening, eager, waiting, longing. Shifted against him as he sank deep into her, as their hips fitted just right, and arched beneath him, crying out, her arm hooked up around his neck, his hair falling, brushing her over-sensitive flesh. He was demanding, the way he held her and moved with her, his hand splayed out between her shoulderblades, insistent. Uncompromisingly hers and demanding the same. When he came, he came with shuddering gasps and shaking fingers in her hair; she followed, led there by his tumbling sounds as much as the sureness of their bodies together.

When it was over, they held each other. It was a survivors' hug, long and hard and desperate, bodies wrapped up in one another, clinging to connection and to life. She clutched at his shoulders and kissed his cheek and she swallowed down tears. There were doors opening up before her, but some were closing too, and she knew it had to be that way but it hurt like hell as well.

Finally, they released one another, just a little. Lucius tasted of salt when she kissed him, but he was smiling at her, too.

When they were dressed again, he took her by the hand and led her back to the Chesterfield. Drew her down into the crook of his arm.

"Do you think they'd mind?" she wondered. She didn't say who _they_ were. She didn't need to.

He shook his head. "No. Narcissa wouldn't, anyway. She was eminently sensible. She would expect me to grieve a while, then dust myself off and find myself a good woman." He gave a smile, very definitely a nostalgic one, as though remembering her saying exactly that. He went on dryly, "I suppose Remus would be _appalled_ that it was me."

"Probably," she agreed, "although he was probably the most understanding in the Order about shades of grey. He was the nicest of all of us to Severus, and Severus didn't always deserve it." That was a pleasing memory, simple and warm, and her voice was fond. She went on, the warmth falling out of her voice, "But then, Remus seemed to spend more of his time trying to push me away than holding me close. He seemed to think that just about any other man would do, up to and including a Death Eater, as long as he was _whole_." She spat the word like an obscenity.

Lucius' hold on her tightened, and he kissed her hair, long and fiercely tender. She heard him take a breath, like he was going to say something, but in the end he said nothing.

They stayed that way a while. He said presently, "I've missed this. Loving someone, I mean."

She nodded. It occurred to her that they had slipped into love-words so easily, maybe too easily. But then, what other words were there? They'd been to hell and back.

"Do you?" she asked thoughtfully. It wasn't a bid for reassurance. She was intensely curious. Struck by the matter-of-fact way he seemed to approach it.

He seemed to understand what she was asking. "You're younger, Nymphadora. Your generation hangs on to love, like it's some sort of earth-shattering secret to be dragged out of you as an admission." She smiled a little; she loved him like this, thoughtful and introspective. He went on, "It isn't. It's just a fact, and actually quite a useless one in itself. If you don't do something with it, you might as not love at all. It's at least fifty percent an act of will." It was an interesting perspective, one that shed an interesting sidelight on his marriage to Narcissa, and she filed it away in the place in her mind reserved for things she loved about Lucius.

He was wrong about how it applied to her, though. He'd assumed the source of her curiosity was generational, but loving Remus had been a similarly uphill battle. It had been two steps forward and two steps back all the way. If love was an act of will, Remus' will had been imprisoned with a good part of the man she knew he could have been.

"And if I didn't love you?" she wondered. Hastened to add, "I do, of course, but what would you have done if I hadn't?"

"I would pick myself up, dust myself off, and go on, naturally," he said briskly. "Love isn't a business for the weak."

She thought now, more than ever, that was absolutely true.

* * *

"I need to tell you something."

Tonks was fidgeting like a child, running her finger over the rim of her teacup. Steam rose and lingered, then blew away.

"No, you don't," Andromeda said matter-of-factly. "I think I saw it coming before you did." Tonks shot her a look. "Besides, your hair is pink," she added dryly. "All that's missing is a neon sign saying 'I got laid.'"

Tonks took a lock of it between her fingers and inspected it. Gave a little sound of surprise; she hadn't felt the change – she didn't always – and Lucius hadn't mentioned it, possibly hadn't even noticed in the firelight. And they'd had, perhaps, other things on their minds, like how to please each other and how their bodies fit together and what rhythm was just right, what made them meld into a single accord.

Now, she met her mother's gaze. A little afraid of what she would find there. "Do you think I'm awful? It hasn't even been a year."

Andromeda shook her head. "You forget, Dora, I'm rather well placed to understand. I seem to remember nine months as being about the time that I was ready. At least to think about it."

"You never said anything," she said curiously.

"I didn't want to upset you," her mother said, staring down into her cup. "Ted was your father, and you'd lost your husband more recently than that. It was complicated. I didn't know if you'd understand."

Tonks stared at her. Realisation dawning. "Wait – you're _seeing_ someone? Merlin! Who?"

Andromeda shifted uncomfortably. Rose and took her cup to the kitchen. Deliberately busying herself at the sink, she said, "Xenophilius Lovegood."

Tonks tried to put the two of them together in her mind; the image wouldn't form. She didn't believe she'd ever seen them together. "But – I haven't seen him here, or anything!"

"No, and deliberately so. It wasn't like you and Lucius. Xen pursued me when I was a girl. I rejected him because he was a pureblood – which I suppose Lucius would say makes me no better than him. I loved your father, but I admit I always wondered. So when I was...ready...I owled him."

Tonks nearly fell off her chair. " _You_ asked _him_?"

"Well, you're not the only one who can be _charming_ and _unconventional_ ," Andromeda said with a sly smile. "But we hadn't really passed more than a few words in nearly thirty years. I didn't know if it would lead anywhere, and why upset you if it didn't?"

Tonks arched a brow. "Well, as fascinating as this is, I think I'd like to turn back to my own revelation, if that's all right." Andromeda gave a sound of amusement, and she went on. "Do you mind? About Lucius, I mean?"

"Whether I do or I don't, it isn't as though you'll pay any heed to _me_ ," Andromeda said without rancour. "I just hope you don't think he's some sort of misunderstood nice guy, that's all. I realise that he's somewhat less one-dimensional than we'd all once thought, but there's still a lot about him that's obnoxious and objectionable."

She dismissed this with a wave of her hand. "Oh, I dare say I'd find him completely insufferable if I didn't _love_ him. But he loves me, and he's unwavering and loyal to people he loves."

Andromeda's brow puckered. "Yes, he is. I can see how that would be attractive to you," she said thoughtfully. "Especially after Remus." She lifted her gaze to Dora's meaningfully.

She felt ugly, hurtful things rise up in her, and she slammed them down. "You take that back," she flared. "Remus was a good man."

Andromeda pointed to the front door and retorted, "A man who left you weeping on our doorstep!"

She felt horrible, hateful tears rising up in her face. "He was _scared!_ "

"And you were pregnant."

Dora got to her feet. "And this conversation is over."

COMING IN PART 3: DENIAL


	3. Denial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucius discovers that moving on isn't so easy with a well-meaning portrait and his own pesky logic around, while Tonks grapples with what it means to love not one, but two very imperfect men.

**[DENIAL – LUCIUS]**

 

"You should take me down, you know."

Lucius looked up from Narcissa's dressing table, where he sat fastening his shirt. Turned to look at the small portrait of her beside his bed.

She'd been there when he'd come to bed in the early hours of the morning. For some time now, she had been in the habit of departing her portrait in the parlour whenever Nymphadora came over. Like she knew the change was coming. He thought now that she knew it before he did.

Ignoring her comment, he said, "Dressing tables are very practical things. Why don't men have them, do you think?"

A ghost of a smile came over her features. "Most men aren't as vain as you, darling."

"You wound me, wife." He said it in moderately good humour, turning his attention to his reflection once more.

She said presently, "I'm not your wife."

He ground his teeth and fastened her brooch at his neck.

Narcissa said again, "I'm not your wife, and you should stop wearing that."

He turned around again. "What the hell do you mean, you're not my wife? We were married for twenty-six years."

" _Were_ , Lucius. Marriage is for the living. We swore to one another until death do us part. And it did."

That made his breath catch in his chest a little. He rose and made his way to the bed beside her. Sat down on it, his hands dangling uselessly between his knees. He bowed his head, breathing hard. She watched him curiously from her painted high-backed chair.

"It's going to bother her, if it doesn't already," she said gently. "The bedroom and the parlour are your favourite places to...you know. So where did you put me? The bedroom and the parlour. Honestly, darling, men have no foresight."

"I wasn't planning to replace you," he said quietly. "Forgive me if I didn't have the etiquette of taking a new lover at the forefront of my mind."

She looked surprised by this. "You didn't replace me, Lucius." She went on, "I'm just a painting. An enchanted piece of canvas, with a bit of hair out of her hairbrush mixed in. Just enough to be able to say the things she thought, more or less as she would have said them. I'm not your wife. Your wife is gone." Her voice was kind.

"So what do you suggest I do? Store you in the attic? I won't burn you, Narcissa. Not again."

A look of pity passed over her painted features, but she said only, "I hear the hallway is pleasant. You could move the big one from the parlour to there. And perhaps Draco would like the smaller one."

"The hallway is _not_ pleasant," he snorted. "Have you forgotten my father's there? And if Draco has his way with Astoria, you'll be avoiding _you-know_ in his room as well."

"Please," she said primly. "That's my son you're talking about."

"Precisely." He wondered, "So what am I supposed to do, Narcissa? Strip the house of everything you ever touched?"

"Not at all. Just make a bit of room for the poor girl. Is there any reason you can't keep the brooch for special occasions?"

He gave a sound of frustration and removed it. "You're making too much of this, you know. Men don't attach a lot of sentiment to objects. It's just a habit."

"So's grief, after a while. Life is for the living, Lucius."

"You're an amateur philosopher now? Please." He said tersely, "Narcissa, what are you _doing_ here?"

"Why, Lucius," she said kindly, " _you_ put me here. You paid the painter. You gave him my hair. So why don't you tell me?"

He didn't have an answer. He didn't think she really expected one anyway.

* * *

"Where's Tonks?"

Draco asked this as he took his seat in Lucius' office, Leonie's lovingly-made lunch in hand. He'd already left for work when Lucius had come down for breakfast that morning.

"She's not coming." Lucius braced himself for the awkward task ahead, then said, "I wanted to talk to you alone."

Draco's head snapped up. A cascade of emotions passed over his face, too quickly for Lucius to interpret any of them. He said grimly, "It's happened, hasn't it? You and Tonks?" His face settled into a resigned expression. "I knew it would."

"And that upsets you." It wasn't a question.

Draco gave a wearied sigh. "You're rotten at this, Dad. You should have let Tonks do it. Hell, Mum's portrait would have done it better."

"Your mother's portrait has already pointed out several of my deficiencies today," Lucius said curtly. "I'll add that to the list."

Draco softened. "You'd be a perfectly good father if you would stop playing bloody roles and _talk_ to me. The tough-love-Dad thing might have worked for you, but it didn't work for me. And it certainly doesn't work now that Mum's not here to balance it out."

Lucius inclined his head in concession. "I suppose that's true enough. I don't know how to _talk_."

"Rubbish. You talked to Mum. And you talk to Tonks. Why not me?"

"Because they're...equals, I suppose." It wasn't quite the right word, but it was the best one he could come up with on short notice.

"And I'm not?"

"I didn't mean it like that. You're a – a rather fine young man, Draco. I'm – rather proud of that." He said it awkwardly.

Draco looked gratified. "What, then?"

"I mean I'm supposed to be... _bigger_ than you. I'm supposed to protect you, not confide in you."

Only he _wasn't_ bigger, was he? In the war they were all trying so hard to forget, Draco had shown himself to be twice the man Lucius had ever been. Draco had resisted – with terror, and tears, but he had resisted. Lucius had never resisted, only snuck around and evaded as best he could.

Now, Draco unfastened his cuff and lifted his sleeve. Laid his forearm out on the desk, Dark Mark exposed, faded but never gone. "You can't protect me. You never could."

It hurt Lucius to look at, in a way that his own did not. He said quietly, "And I have to live with that every day."

Draco said, "And that's really the problem, isn't it? It's always been the problem. Even when I was little." He fastened his cuff again. "That's what Tonks says."

"And she's the expert," Lucius mocked.

"When it comes to you? I think she is." Draco sat back in his chair. "You know, I didn't think I'd mind," he said thoughtfully. "About you and Tonks, I mean. I thought I'd be pleased."

"Why aren't you?" Lucius wondered.

"I... _think_...it makes it real," Draco said.

"I don't understand."

"That Mum really isn't coming back." He looked very young all of a sudden.

"Oh, _Draco_ ," he said gently. More gently than he thought he'd spoken to Draco ever.

"It isn't that I don't like her – I do." Draco was suddenly very childlike. "I just wish there was some way we could have had them both."

Lucius felt something inside him crumble. He hadn't wept for Narcissa in months, but now there was salt and warmth rising in his face. His first instinct was to look away and hide his face, but he thought that if he did that, he'd lose the ground he'd made up with Draco, and he might not get it back.

The boy was almost grown; the time for becoming his father was fast slipping away.

So he didn't hide. He held Draco's gaze, his and Narcissa's mirror image, streaked with loss that matched his own.

"I do too, son. God, I do too."

* * *

Nymphadora stepped awkwardly out of Lucius' Floo, Teddy in her arms.

Lucius watched her from the doorway, feeling fresh warmth for her, watching her dust off her skirt like an ungainly teenager. Her hair was purple – he'd never seen it like that (had he done that? he wondered with something like pride) – and she was smiling.

"Hello, Lucius," she said. Came over to him and slipped a tentative hand over his shoulder, like she was afraid even now that he was going to disappear.

He drew her closer. Just as hesitant. Kissed her, his fingers tracing their way along her jaw. "I like your hair."

"You should. It's your fault." She was smiling against his mouth.

Lucius kissed her once more, then pulled away; Teddy was there and lunch would be served soon and he didn't want to start something they couldn't finish. "Where's your mum?" he wondered.

"She couldn't make it," she murmured. "Saturday lunch is just us. Do you mind?"

He shook his head, taking Teddy as he wriggled from her arms. "Why couldn't she make it?"

Nymphadora looked away. "We're not speaking."

Lucius sighed. "It's about us, isn't it? I'm sorry, Nymphadora."

She looked uncomfortable.

He frowned. "Nymphadora?" he prompted.

"It's not us," she admitted. "She said something. About Remus. I – took offence. We argued."

A chill came over his voice. "You're not speaking to your living mother because of someone who's dead?"

"It's not just _any_ old someone, Lucius," she said in clear affront. "He was my husband."

He snapped, "I don't care. Fix it."

Nymphadora stared up at him. "I _beg_ your pardon?"

"I said, fix it."

"That's – that's really not your call to make!" Dora's voice was outraged; her hair had turned a dangerous shade of red.

"Like hell it's not. Draco loves you and Andromeda both. He's trying so hard, and it isn't easy for him, to see you taking his mother's place." For fuck's sake, he was standing here holding her son like his own, and if she thought he would expect any less from her, she had another think coming.

"I know that. I love Draco, you know I do. But still-"

"Nymphadora," he said, his voice filled with warning, "Draco grew up with aunts and uncles who would have killed us all for the pettiest of grudges. Family conflict isn't safe for him. I will not stand for you upsetting him with this."

She was looking at him oddly. Said softly, "Don't look now, Lucius, but you and Draco are actually starting to understand each other."

He snorted. "Maybe it's time you and Andromeda did the same."

That fury came back into her eyes, flashing as she stared up at him. Weighing it up. Finally, she pursed her lips and turned back to the fireplace. Grabbed a handful of Floo powder from the jar on the mantle and threw it in. Said clearly, "Tonks residence." Put her head into the cold emerald flame. "Mum?"

"What is it, Dora?" Andromeda's disembodied voice floated up out of the flame. It sounded chilly even from here. Nymphadora and Andromeda were two of a kind, Lucius thought, two red-hot women burning each other without even trying.

"I don't want to talk about this morning. At all."

"All right."

Nymphadora ground her teeth. "Would you come to lunch?"

There was a pause, then Andromeda said curiously, "Did Lucius put you up to this?"

Dora threw him a look, and he stepped forward. "We'd _both_ like you here, Andromeda. The boys need consistency. We all do."

Another pause, a longer one. Finally, Andromeda said, "Give me an hour. I'll come." The flame went out as abruptly as it had began.

Nymphadora was looking at him sidelong. "Thank you, I suppose," she said with ill-grace.

"United front," he said, staring into the empty fireplace. "That's what Narcissa always...used to say."

He turned away; Teddy was drifting off to sleep on his shoulder. He snapped his fingers and Leonie appeared with a _crack_. He didn't need to ask; she simply took the baby from him. She would put him down in Draco's old nursery for a nap before lunch. "Hold off on lunch a while," he instructed, and she nodded. "Madam Tonks will be here in an hour."

When he finished, he turned back to Nymphadora. She was still standing by the fireplace, turned away. Shoulders hunched. She'd paid no attention to the domestics happening around her; that wasn't like her. She liked Leonie and she would touch Teddy tenderly even if he was asleep. He wondered if he'd pushed her too hard when he pushed her to reconcile with her mother.

He went to her. Laid his hands on her shoulders. "Thank you," he said gently. Kissed the back of her head, smelling that ridiculous, adorable purple hair. "Thank you."

She leaned back against him. Unwinding in spite of herself, perhaps. Shook her head a little, as though in defeat. He didn't want her defeat. He wanted to her to understand.

"I'm not sorry for pushing you to do that," he said, making the distinction clear. "If you're ours, then you're _really_ ours. I've no use for anything less. But I'm sorry I upset you."

She turned to face him. Looking up at him with dark, gleaming eyes. "I've no use for anything less either. What was it you called it? A united front? I'm not used to that, that's all. Giving it, or getting it."

Well, yes, that made sense. He'd gathered that her relationship with Lupin had been troubled, but it had escaped in hints and fragments. He didn't really have a handle on it.

Lucius sighed and took her by the hand. "Come, Nymphadora. We've got an hour. Come and tell me about it. Please."

"Draco-"

"Is in the library with his nose in a book. We won't see him 'til lunch. We're only talking. Come on." He tugged on her hand. Led her to the couch and sat. She sat too, leaning into the crook of his arm.

"I don't know what you want me to say," she said presently. "Remus was very...damaged, I suppose you'd say, by the lycanthropy." He nodded – she'd already intimated that much. "He always felt that he was short-changing me somehow by being with me. Too old, too poor, too dangerous, not whole, all that. Like he was doing something wrong by being with me. I wouldn't expect you'd understand," she added with a wry smile.

He didn't. Oh, he was conscious that in taking up with him, Nymphadora had traded one disreputable man for another, but it wouldn't have stopped him from pursuing a relationship with her – not so long as she was willing and went in with her eyes open. He said dryly, "I'm not so self-sacrificing as that."

"No," she agreed. "I rather like that about you. I told Mum as much. She said she could see how you would be attractive to me after Remus. That's why we argued. She hit a nerve, I suppose."

He smirked. "See? Your mother loves me, deep down."

"She _tolerates_ you, deep down. Anyway. The thing is, all of that was about him. I know that. But if you act like you're doing something wrong for long enough...you – _he_ – made me feel like..."

It fell into place then. "He made you feel like you were the one doing something wrong."

Nymphadora looked away. "He made me ashamed of loving him. And then we married, and _that_ was hole-and-corner, too. I never felt that he was proud to be with me." She swallowed hard. He couldn't see it, but he could hear it. Her hair had turned a dishwater brown that he'd never seen before. Somehow it was worse even than the dead white of her grief. The white had a sad vibrance of its own. The brown was lifeless. Like sleepwalking. Like the Imperius.

He kissed her hair. Stroked it gently. Half-wished that nitwit Lupin was in front of him so he could punch him in the jaw. Damn that Gryffindor sense of honour. It caused at least as many problems as it solved. A measured dose of self-interest was a bloody healthy thing.

"So you see, Remus and I never had what you called a united front. Even when we were together, we were never really together." She drew in her breath, sounded like she was about to say something more, but in the end she held her peace. He wondered about it, but decided to let it go.

"Look at me," he said, and she did. "Remember what I said about love being an act of heart _and_ will?" She nodded. "Will's much harder to cultivate than heart, Nymphadora. Will is about strength. Being strong enough to face things about yourself, and to act accordingly. If Remus' will was weak, it doesn't mean he didn't feel it and it didn't mean he was ashamed of you. They're different things."

She cocked an eyebrow. Openly doubtful. "You seemed to manage it okay."

"That's quite different. My marriage was arranged. I was already promised to Narcissa when I fell in love with her. I had the will ready-made, in a manner of speaking." Saying it, he realised with discomfort that he had never really navigated the beginning of an adult relationship at all.

"And with me?" The shadows had lifted from her features; she was gazing at him with great warmth.

It dawned on him, with a gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach, that he didn't in fact know the answer. This was all new to him. Narcissa was upstairs in her portrait haunting him like a ghost and Draco was in the library steeling himself to adjust to his new-look family, and suddenly Lucius didn't fucking know what he was (and was not) willing to do about Nymphadora. About any of it.

He only knew that he loved her. That was his only constant.

He tugged her against him. Kissed her. Hard. Drew her up on top of him urgently. Not to distract her, though that was a bonus; but because for Lucius, love and lust and belonging were all tangled up together, hopelessly entwined in a predestined marriage bed. And now, with Nymphadora, every instinct in him drove him to possess her.

So he had her, but when they were done, he still wasn't sure if he was willing to belong in return.

* * *

It was only a couple of days before the Ministry betting pool paid out.

Not that they were caught _doing_ anything. It was nothing so spectacular as that. It was just a slip of the tongue. She tripped into a crowded elevator; he caught her, she apologised. He said dryly, "You wouldn't be my Nymphadora if you could manage to stay upright for a whole day unaided."

She laughed, went back to rummaging in her bag for her quill, and they thought nothing more of it.

By the end of the day, he had been on the receiving end of " _My Nymphadora?_ " no less than thirteen times (nine of which were accompanied by a single raised eyebrow that would have done Severus proud). By then, Lucius was furious, closing the door on the latest offender with ill-grace and warding it. Anything for five minutes' peace.

"You're being ridiculous."

Lucius turned with a drawn-in breath. The small portrait in his office was so rarely occupied that he'd forgotten it was there. Had he and Nymphadora _done_ anything here? he wondered in alarm, searching quickly through his memories. Nothing much. A kiss or two. Now, he wondered if that was a kiss or two too many.

"Narcissa," he said, recovering. "You don't normally come here."

"No. Politics bore me. But I admit I was curious."

"About what?"

"About you." She nodded an autocratic chin towards the door. "I see the vultures are in full flight."

"They have no bloody right," he said impatiently. "They don't care what I do. There's no reason they should."

"No, but they care for her. She's one of their own. They might have shunned her for marrying the werewolf, but they still want to know that she's happy. Rather like me with Andromeda."

He said with ill-grace, "A very un-Narcissa thing to say, don't you think? If you were alive, there's no way you'd be so tolerant of their nonsense."

"Charming," she sniffed. "It's just as well I'm not sensitive about it." She went on, "You're acting like a guilty man having an affair."

"Hardly. I'm discussing it with you, aren't I?" he said grimly.

"Not to me. To them. Are you ashamed of her, Lucius?"

His face grew hot, and he wasn't sure why. "Ashamed? No. Nymphadora is strong and beautiful and accomplished. Any man would be proud." Well, except for a blood purist, but no one would admit to being one of those anymore. And he and Narcissa had always made exceptions for the strong and the loyal.

"Then stop behaving like it," Narcissa said imperiously. "I heard what she said about Remus. How do you think she'll take it when she realises you're doing exactly the same thing?"

Lucius felt a chill. He knew enough now of Nymphadora's relationship with Remus to understand exactly what that would do to her. It embarrassed him slightly that it had taken Narcissa to make him realise he had to work out what he wanted, and fast.

He said only, "You're giving me romantic advice now? Please."

"I would like to see Draco happy. I have a vested interest in this relationship of yours. And she is, after all, a Black." She went on, "She'd make him a good stepmother. She already does."

"Stepmother? Fuck's sake, woman, we've been together a week."

"You've been together nine months," Narcissa said dryly.

"And you don't have a problem with that? You were never this selfless in life. You were possessive and hungry and I liked you that way."

Narcissa spread her hands wide, universal gesture of indifference. "Like I said, Lucius, I'm not your wife. I don't love you. I don't ache for you. All that died with her. I just sit on a wall and watch life go by. Today, your struggles interest me. Maybe tomorrow they won't. I'm just a painting."

Lucius pressed his lips together, grimly. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to get away from her. He turned and headed for the door.

"Lucius?" she called.

"Yes?" he said. He didn't turn around.

She said curiously, "Do you ache for her, Lucius?"

He slammed the door without a backward glance.

* * *

Lucius couldn't get off to sleep.

He also couldn't get off.

He wasn't conscious of any great emotional disturbance. He was just tired, a bit distracted, and he had work on his mind, and not even interesting work. Just busywork.

He'd tried three times now, gotten most of the way there before losing momentum again. He'd have written it off as a lost cause if he could get to sleep, but he couldn't. He was wound up tight and needed release.

There was Nymphadora, of course. He could Apparate to her house, could slip into bed with her. He'd never done that, but had no reason to think he would be unwelcome.

But he wouldn't do that to her. Not when he was no longer sure.

He hadn't lied to Nymphadora. He _did_ love her, and he wouldn't have pushed her away out of a misdirected sense of honour. Lucius was not one to deny emotional truths. He'd never needed to – after all, he'd had a loving and unconditionally accepting wife his whole adult life. Narcissa had accepted his admittedly obnoxious personality, his mildly dominant streak, and the awful things he had brought down on them all.

So the fabled male tendency to run for emotional cover was completely foreign to him – and, in his view, rather cowardly, too. But was he ready to set Narcissa aside once and for all, and _be_ with Dora? He'd felt a twinge of doubt when Draco talked about Nymphadora as some kind of symbol of the permanence of Narcissa's death, and it had been getting stronger ever since.

It wasn't as though he and Nymphadora had chosen each other on any kind of rational basis, after all. Romantic minds might scoff at rationality, but for Lucius, it had been the basis of one successful partnership already. Nymphadora was different. Circumstances had led them to fall in together, and now he was second-guessing himself. Unsure if that was enough of a basis for a family. He had no interest in a fling. He had found stability and structure in married life and he missed it. He wanted to rebuild his life, for him and for his son, and she was entitled to do the same for herself and hers.

It didn't bloody help that Narcissa's portrait was suddenly so talkative. For months, she'd dozed in her chair mostly, waking and padding softly from portrait to portrait now and then as though to reassure herself that her husband and son still lived. Until this week, she'd barely passed a dozen words to either of them, perhaps judging that her silent abstraction would make it easier for them to accept her passing.

He didn't even really know why he'd had them made. It was just one of the standard mourning rituals – for the wealthy, at least. And, he supposed, there was something comforting about her dozing there. If he really wanted to hear her voice, he could. He rarely had sought her out, but just knowing he could had been a help. It had been a buffer against the reality of her death.

But now she was ever-present. Worse, she knew him as intimately as ever, but she was as impersonally interested in him as a gossipy maiden aunt. Not really Narcissa, but a caricature of her. More disconcerting than her absence had ever been.

"Fuck," he whispered in the moonlight, shooting a resentful glance at the portrait in question on the bedside table. Narcissa was there, but she wasn't paying any attention to him. She was standing by the window next to her painted chair, looking out over a rather insipidly-rendered landscape, her back turned. On the whole, he was grateful for that.

He closed his eyes. Stilled his breathing. Turned his head to his side, burying his face in his pillow. Allowed images to wash over him, of pressing down on her (he didn't know _which_ her) and kneading linked hands. Took himself in hand. Rifled through his memories and feelings, first feeling predatory and hungry, then adoring, then sinking into softness, then fucking hard and deep. Kissing necks and jaws and fingertips and pulling clothes out of the way. Exquisitely arched female neck and hips straddling his. He didn't linger on any memory long enough to see who it was. Simply caught glimpses and impressions before moving on. Let it build up until he was breathing hard and biting back sounds of need and clutching at sheets with his free hand.

He heard rustling. Narcissa turning around in her painting. His eyes flew open in the moonlight.

She had unbuttoned her dress and let it fall open. She stood there, a naked woman in a portrait, beautifully rendered yet curiously sexless.

"Do you love me, Lucius?" she said softly. "Do I make you ache?"

He was throbbing, clutching, desperate for flesh and warmth, and somehow that anaemic, lifeless voice made it all so clear. Cold chills washed over him, watershed moment overlaid on heat and need, and his erection fell away but it was like he'd come anyway.

"No," he rasped on shuddering breaths. "You're just a painting. You're not my wife."

Narcissa gave a sympathetic little smile. Pulled her dress closed around her. He felt his face crumple and drew his pillow hard against him, like a lover. Or a lifeline.

"Goodnight, Lucius," he heard her say kindly, but he didn't see her leave, because the heels of his hands were pressed to sore, leaking eyes as he choked out his grief into his pillow.

It didn't matter, because really, she was already long gone anyway.

* * *

When he came down for breakfast, Draco wasn't there.

He looked in the dining room, then the parlour. Narcissa was dozing in her portrait there. She opened her eyes when he approached.

"He's at Nymphadora's," she said. "He went by Floo half an hour ago. He said he'd meet you there."

Lucius locked gazes with her, wondering what the protocol was for re-establishing polite relations with a portrait. Particularly one that had apparently observed his masturbatory habits to ensure maximum suggestibility for self-revelation.

As if in answer to his question, Narcissa said casually, "I instructed Leonie to have me moved to the hallway, and the little ones from your bedroom and office stored. It should be done by the time you get home. If I tire of your father's company, I'll be sure to let you know."

He gave a little nod. "Thank you."

"You should go," she said. "They'll be waiting." With that, she closed her eyes and went back to sleep.

He watched her for a moment, frowning, then he left her.

He Apparated into Nymphadora's little sitting room a few minutes later. He could hear them in the other room, Nymphadora and Draco and Andromeda too.

"So Astoria says to him, 'Draco might have a Dark Mark, but at least he has the sense not to woo a girl by pulling her pigtails.' And then she says, 'Draco, I do believe I'd like to go out with you this evening after all.'"

Nymphadora was laughing. "It's good to see you haven't let being second choice dent your spirit any."

Draco laughed too. "It's what you do with your chance once you get it, Tonks. The way she kissed me goodnight, I don't think I'm second choice anymore."

Andromeda choked. " _Please_ ," she said, pained.

Lucius came around into the doorframe, and lingered there, watching. Draco, holding Teddy, said, "Sorry, Dromeda. I keep forgetting you're – uh -"

Nymphadora smirked. "I believe the word you're looking for is _prude_."

Lucius started to smirk too, but suddenly he could feel warmth rising in his face, stinging his eyes.

 _We're_ already _a family_. The realisation came over him like a sudden downpour of summer rain, gentle and warm and shocking as well.

And watching Nymphadora, purple hair and mismatched clothes and a laugh that made he and Draco both smile again, he ached for her. Ached so hard that he rocked on his heels, wanted to drag her away and take her _right. fucking. now_.

Nymphadora had spotted him; now, she got to her feet and came over. Looking curious. "Lucius?" she said softly. "Are you all right?"

He drew her close by her hips, leading her around the corner in a gesture that was unmistakeably possessive. Kissed her, long and deep and slow. Her eyes were a bit glazed over when he finally let her go.

"Just a little crisis of will," he said quietly. If he had any lingering doubts at all, they were banished by the hurt that rose in her eyes, eyes that were as alive as Narcissa's voice was dead. He never wanted to make her look like that again. "No, it's not like that. It was about...about Narcissa. It's done. I love you with my heart _and_ my will." He kissed her forehead. "I'll tell you about it one day. When we're old and gray." Willed her to understand. He would still be there then, if she wanted him.

Her lips were trembling. She was tugging him, leading him. "Come upstairs. Now."

He stared at her. "We need to get to the Ministry-"

"This is more important. It'll only take a couple of minutes, if we're quick." She was serious, urgent.

He took her face hard between his hands. "I'm _yours_ , Nymphadora." He meant it.

"Show me," she said implacably. "Please."

So he followed her upstairs, and it _was_ only a couple of minutes, clothes pushed aside and a few quick strokes against her bedroom door. Just enough to reach into that fearful part of her and fill it with warmth and light.

When it was over, he wondered if she believed it for good, or just for now.

* * *

**[DENIAL – TONKS]**

"I want you to host a party for me."

Lucius made this stunning pronouncement quite nonchalantly over dinner one evening.

Tonks raised an eyebrow. "Do go on, darling," she said sweetly, looking up from her position next to Teddy's chair.

The corners of Draco's mouth twitched; clearly, he could see that Lucius was on dangerous ground even if Lucius could not. The _darling_ should have alerted him, but he was preoccupied with his underlying agenda.

"It would serve a few purposes," Lucius was saying. "It would, of course, officially announce our new family configuration."

"You make it sound so romantic," Tonks said with a smirk. No one but Lucius would consider an announcement necessary. "What else, pray tell?"

"Secondly, it would be a reclaiming of this house. It has...lifted...with your presence," Lucius added (and Tonks thought he suddenly looked very vulnerable), "but it is still, to the outside world, the Dark Lord's headquarters, and the scene of a number of atrocities. I would like to begin to remove those associations, for Teddy, and later, for Draco's children. It may not be possible to forget, but at least we can begin to redeem. I don't want them tainted."

She nodded. She hadn't thought of that. He was quite right – if the situation were not managed correctly, Teddy would arrive at Hogwarts, an adopted Malfoy, raised in a house of slaughter. She didn't want that for him.

"So you propose to begin to re-establish us in polite society, and the Manor in the process."

"Something like that. But there's another reason."

Tonks arched an eyebrow. Intrigued. "Yes?"

A smile played around the corners of Lucius' mouth. "It would help the Family Reunions project."

 _Two_ eyebrows. She said slowly, "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"

The humour fell out of his voice. "Malfoys don't _fail_ , Nymphadora. The Ministry may have written me off by putting me on a dead-end project, but that doesn't mean I have to accept it as a foregone conclusion."

Tonks choked. " _You're_ going to actively promote reunions among families divided by blood status."

"Bloody hell, Nymphadora," he said, "I'm all but married to a half-blood."

"Yes, but to quote you, I'm a powerful one. And a Black. I'm the exception." She was mostly teasing. Mostly.

Lucius said huffily, "I am nothing if not an accomplished public servant, Dora. I don't have to _believe_ in something to manage its implementation. And anyway, I _do_ believe in it. How many times have I told you, for Malfoys, family comes first?"

She hadn't expected him to be so vehement about it. She inclined her head. "That's true enough," she conceded, and was rewarded with a mollified look. "How are you going to do it?"

"Well, we can start with a guest list with a mix of blood status, plus a couple of sympathetic members of the press. I think if the invitation comes from the two of us, that alone will weed out those who are truly opposed to integration. Anyone who comes will at least be open enough to work on."

Tonks thought some might attend just to spit in one or both of their faces, but decided against saying so.

"The second thing is, there has to be some sort of reason people should attend – something philanthropic – but it can't look like I'm buying support. There needs to be more to it than money. I was thinking of handing over the front grounds – the area before the gates – as a public rose garden. It can be a memorial for those who died here."

She frowned. "It's risky. It draws attention to the fact."

The words had barely fallen from her lips before they repelled her. She wasn't a career strategist in the way that Lucius was, but she had her own personal brand of dissociation in Practical Dora, and the way she sometimes shut inconvenient Passionate Dora away. It was easy - frighteningly easy - to slip into cold hard strategy with him sometimes, and she didn't like what that said about her.

She was suddenly, forcefully struck by the fact that this place she and her son called home was a house of horrors, albeit with a new coat of paint in brighter colours. Charity Burbage had died on this table, just about on the spot where Teddy was now eating, and all the paint in the world couldn't change the fact. She felt a wave of revulsion that rocked her on her heels, and a wild impulse to snatch up her child and Apparate away and never come back.

Lucius was oblivious to her sudden unease. "It is, but probably less risky than not acknowledging it at all. And in a way, it shifts the associations outside the Manor itself."

Ruthlessly, she pushed her bone-chilling thoughts aside. "True," she agreed. "How will you get sympathetic press?"

"I'm a major shareholder in the Daily Prophet."

Lucius' mouth had formed a thin, predatory smile. It wasn't one she saw very often. This was Lucius the bureaucrat, manipulative and just a little mercenary.

_This is how he survived the war._

__The thought came with a strange flush of warmth, one that came from the utilitarian part of her being, the part that had kept her alive and in her right mind. She supposed it was strange to feel anything but revolted by this worst part of him, but he had spent years in the company of Voldemort and was still drawing breath and sane, and she couldn't begrudge him a few residual conniving tendencies. She had her own ruthlessly practical side, after all.

"That's good," she said mechanically, filing away her unease in a mental drawer along with any number of other disconcerting thoughts. They weren't all or even mostly about Lucius; Remus occupied a good part of that drawer, too.

"S'good," Teddy echoed approvingly, and it seemed to wake her from her introspection. He was clutching a toy wand and waving it in the air. Enchanted little swirls of colour trailed in its wake. His laughter chased the remnants of her disquiet away.

"So will you do it?" Lucius prompted, and she smiled at him - a real smile, filled with fond indulgence.

"Of course I'll do it. United front, and all that. Besides, I thought my cooperation was assumed."

"I asked, didn't I?"

"That was just for form's sake, wasn't it?"

Draco choked on his food, then gave a bark of laughter. "She's got you there, Dad."

Tonks laughed too. And she _was_ Tonks again, her dual halves together, sitting there with her family, her own inner chasm bridged as quickly as it had formed.

But she never put Teddy into that particular chair again.

* * *

"How _will_ you deal with blood prejudice?" Tonks asked later that evening. Her disquiet was long forgotten.

They were curled up on the Chesterfield by the fire. It was a year since the Battle of Hogwarts, almost summer, so the fire was low. Mostly just for atmosphere. Lucius had a fondness for aesthetic; he liked elegance and he liked to luxuriate in detail. The places he liked best in the house were an extension of him, as though his clothes and his hair and his jewels had been transfigured into furnishings and fabrics and trim. He liked romance, but of the dramatic and gothic kind - deep colours rather than pastels, touches that were demands, not requests.

His eyebrow was raised in query, so she went on, "I know you say family trumps blood, and I know you believe it, but that's not going to be enough to do the job. If anyone senses even one hint of bias against half-bloods and Muggle-borns on your part, your whole work will be undone."

Lucius stretched out, unfolding his body like a long, sleek cat. "My dear Nymphadora," he said lazily, "I'm much more adaptable than you give me credit for."

"Go on," she said, tucking her feet up under her, suppressing a smile. She knew that lazy tone. It usually came right before some terribly thought-out position that was tiresome and illuminating at the same time. Counterpoints, if any, were best made after he'd said his piece. Not because she couldn't argue with him - she could, and he rather enjoyed it when she did - but letting him talk his whole argument through gave a glimpse of a tantalisingly complicated mind.

"Well," he said, "between the wars, there was still lots of quiet prejudice floating around, you know. If your circle of friends was sufficiently self-selecting, you need never challenge your own way of thinking and operating."

Her brow wrinkled. "But the First War was ghastly, wasn't it?"

"The First War had an impact," he conceded, "but nowhere near the order of the Second. People react more to the destruction of institutions than people, I think. There was nothing like what happened to Hogwarts and the Ministry. Its mark on the collective psyche was nowhere near as large."

She prompted, "But now...?"

Lucius shrugged. "Now, it's a new world order. The sheer scale of the Second War broke through the apathy. It was really apathy that allowed the wars to happen in the first place, you know." Tonks nodded. She knew. "So now the half-bloods and Muggle-borns are a power base in their own right. I respect that - no, don't look at me like that, I _do_. They earned it. Paid for it in blood, with interest."

"You're not just being flippant, are you? You really mean that."

"I never joke about power," he said dryly. "I'm not being flippant and I do really mean it."

Tonks kneeled up, and took his face between her hands. Kissed him soundly.

He looked unaccountably pleased. "What was that for?"

She shone him a smile.

"It was for being more adaptable than I gave you credit for."

* * *

"I'm surprised you're so calm about this, Narcissa. Really, to have that unkempt girl and her abomination of a child running around this house as though they own the place –"

The unknown, male voice drifted past her ears. Its origin was the hallway, just a little way behind her vantage point at the top of the stairs. There was a rustling sound as Narcissa drew herself up in her portrait. "My good man," she sniffed, "Nymphadora may not dress to my liking, but she _is_ a Black. I would entrust Lucius and Draco with no one else."

Tonks smirked a little. United front, indeed. Mentally tipping her hat to Narcissa, she adjusted her appearance to include a blonde streak in appreciation.

She had once compared herself to a hostess at an insufferable Pureblood party. Back then, the thought had been hypothetical. As far as she could make out, hosting a Pureblood party - at least ones that were no longer Pureblood but still reasonably insufferable - consisted in the main of wandering around, saying things you didn't mean to people you didn't like, and letting the elves do the rest.

Still, she was pretty sure that Pureblood parties had never been quite like this.

For one thing, there were a large number of Squibs in attendance. They were mostly distant relatives of hers and Draco's, descendants of Marius Black. Interestingly to Tonks, a teenage girl named Violetta Bones-Black was a Metamorphagus, though she possessed no other magic.

The Pureblood population was somewhat more conventional. They were divided into three broad camps – those who had repented of their prejudice, those who had enough sense to protect their reputations by pretending to do so, and those who had never been prejudiced at all, like her mother and Xenophilius Lovegood.

There were also Muggle-borns, and even a handful of full-fledged Muggles. Harry and Ginny sat to one side, talking to a big hulk of a Muggle boy named Dudley, and a pregnant girl who held his hand. She was looking nervously at Teddy, who had chosen today to turn his hair electric blue. He had changed several times today, including blonde while being held by Draco, purple with Andromeda, and now that he had escaped, all the colours of the rainbow in turn, and then some.

"Mamamamamama," Teddy said, climbing the stairs and darting past her. He was fast enough at it now that she had to fight to keep up.

"Come back here, Big Ted," she said, "don't disturb the portraits. Come with Mum, there's a good boy." Giggling, Teddy escaped her clutches.

Up ahead, Tonks heard Abraxas mutter, "That child is an undisciplined half-blood."

Narcissa snapped, "And the other half is Black, so put a sock in it, you miserable old man."

Tonks had formed the distinct impression that Narcissa and Abraxas enjoyed sparring, so she didn't bother to add any commentary as she passed them. She noted, though, that while Teddy's Black and Tonks blood had been acknowledged, his Lupin bloodline was swept aside entirely. Just for a moment, she hated them both for it, then the thought dissolved, forgotten.

He wasn't a baby now, really, she reflected, swooping him up and walking back out to the top of the stairs. Blue was shaping up to be his preferred colour, but his hair was sometimes blonde, especially if Tonks went blonde as well. On those days they looked like a conventional Pureblood family. Other days they looked like the motley crew they really were.

Today, she had compromised, settling on red-black hair (now with its blonde streak in salute of Narcissa's defence of all things Black) and a burgundy steampunk-formal dress, layers of fabric above the knee at the front tapering down to ankle-length at the back. It was an eccentric-elegant mix, just a shade more chic than her usual style, and she found to her surprise that she liked it. Lucius had liked it, too; he had pressed her up against the bedroom wall, touching her jaw with trembling fingers and whispering promises about what he would do to her when their guests went home.

So far, the day seemed like a success. The biggest test had been Chastity Abbott, née Burbage, Charity's twin. She had agreed to attend, but Lucius had no certainty whether it was to accept the overture or to repudiate it. But she had bowed her head at the commemoration of the new rose garden, and lingered there a while, before joining the attendees inside. Tonks had noticed her in deep conversation with Lucius, her expression severe but not completely unyielding. A muscle in his cheek had flickered and a flush of shame had risen up in his face. She touched his hand as she passed by.

Neville Longbottom had come, mostly as a sign of solidarity with Harry and Luna, but he had passed a good half hour with Draco and Astoria. Tonks sifted through what she knew of the family tree. Realised that Neville was distantly related, to Draco and to her. There was tension in the lines of both, but they _were_ talking. Tonks thought that was at least half the battle won.

Ron and Hermione Weasley had made a token appearance at the rose garden, perhaps recognising the importance of their endorsement of any efforts at peace, but they refused to come into the Manor, as had all the Weasleys save Ginny. Tonks didn't blame them; Greyback had testified that Hermione had been tortured here, by Bellatrix, no less. The girl was lucky to be alive and in full possession of her faculties.

Lucius had _watched_ that, she thought. Stood by and done nothing. Gods.

Oh, she'd known it before. She'd seen all manner of cowardly omissions in his mind, and she'd been one of his opponents in the Department of Mysteries. But she hadn't gotten there til just before the prophecy broke, and after that, all the fight went out of him. He'd defended and fled, desperate, she knew now, to get to Narcissa and Draco. And as for the rest of it, none of the victims had been anyone she really knew, except Hermione.

It had been easy to separate wartime-Lucius from _her_ -Lucius when he was her friend. Now that he was hers - now that his home was hers - it suddenly seemed a whole lot harder. It seemed to her now that she was buying in to it all - not just forgiving, but absolving. And absolution was not hers to give. It was for Ron and Hermione and Ollivander, who could not, and Chastity and Harry and Luna, who could. And she could not judge any of them either way.

Looking down over her guests, she spotted Luna, standing with Xenophilius and Andromeda, and she felt her face grow hot with - with something. Shame, perhaps. Suddenly she wanted very badly to be near someone who had forgiven Lucius - who had forgiven her for loving him. She made her way down the stairs, her hand on the banister, and saw to her horror that it was trembling. With effort, she stilled it.

"Nana," Teddy said, and Tonks let him down, making her way between people and following him over. Teddy pushed himself self-importantly into the circle. Indulgently, Andromeda picked him up.

"Xeno, Luna," Tonks said, giving each a kiss on the cheek. Xenophilius embraced her warmly, but was clearly deep in conversation with Andromeda, so she found herself with Luna by default. She said conventionally, "It's good to see you."

She'd always liked what little she knew of Luna. She struck Tonks as a bit quirky and left-of-centre, like Tonks herself. She'd survived three months as a prisoner in the dungeon beneath their feet and still had a lightness about her that Tonks liked very much.

"Hello, Tonks," said Luna, peering at her with eyes that were lively and intelligent and sharp, at odds with her quirky dress and the wand tucked into her flyaway hair and her bare feet with daisy-chains around her ankles. Tonks was suddenly reminded of Bellatrix, that awful day at Hogwarts, dancing ahead of Voldemort like a demented sprite. Right now, Luna seemed like Bella's white-witch twin, light where Bella was dark, sane where Bella was mad, but with the same lively and indomitable nature. Bella's light had shone over-bright and charred everything it touched before turning back on its maker. Luna's light was warm and healed all around her.

She realised Luna had been speaking to her. "I'm sorry," she said, "I - uh - I lost track of-"

"Oh, don't be sorry. You must have been thinking of something very important," Luna said with disconcerting candour.

"I was, actually," Tonks said, a flush rising in her cheeks. "I was thinking about you."

"About me?" Luna said with evident surprise.

"All good things," Tonks reassured. "But what were you saying?"

"I was saying, I'd like to see downstairs, if you and Mr Malfoy wouldn't mind."

Tonks drew in her breath a little. "I, uh. Are you - _sure_ -"

"Oh, yes," Luna said mildly. "But only if Mr Malfoy doesn't mind. I wouldn't like to upset him."

" _You_ don't want to upset _him_?" Tonks echoed stupidly.

"I'm sure it was quite dreadful for him having all those people around and not being able to do anything about it. I'd much rather be in danger doing _something_ than be safe doing nothing, wouldn't you?"

It upset her, hearing it like that, and she didn't know why. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind," she said quickly, swallowing hard. "Let's go."

As dungeons went, she thought as she reluctantly led Luna down the stairs, it wasn't really much of a dungeon at all. It was just a concealed room that happened to have bars on the door. Transfigured bars, actually - she could see the tell-tale signs of deterioration that accompanied the death of whoever cast them. At least that meant Lucius hadn't cast them, thank heavens for small mercies.

"This is it," she said unnecessarily, as though Luna might have confused it with some other dungeon.

Luna stepped inside. Looked around curiously.

Tonks watched her for some minutes. Luna was standing a little way before her, looking at some unseen memory. Unseen demons, she might have thought, but Luna's stance was so mildly inquisitive that she was forced to conclude the girl's ghosts were benign.

"I used to play down here as a boy," Lucius' voice came, hesitantly, from the stairs behind them. It sounded rusty from disuse. "It wasn't like this, of course. It was - warm. It was my favourite place in the world."

Luna turned. She nodded at him encouragingly, as though he was the guest and she, the hostess. "Show me," she said.

Tentatively, Lucius joined them, shooting Tonks a glance. It was a request; his borrowed wand had been confiscated on his arrest and buried with its owner. Ollivander, of course, would not sell to any of them. Lucius was limited to a small repertoire of wandless magic, and had never sought to rectify the situation.

She knew he had been waiting for her to ask why, but she hadn't. She knew why.

She held his gaze for a long moment, then nodded. Held out her wand. " _Finite incantatem_."

The room became lighter as windows were unshuttered. It became cleaner, and then there were furnishings and textiles. Warm furnishings, as Lucius had said, and suddenly Tonks thought she knew where Lucius had acquired his love of lavish surroundings. The room was the antithesis of Abraxas Malfoy, refuge for a boy with a hard father. The father Lucius himself would become.

"It still smells like a dungeon," Luna said mildly, and Lucius flinched.

Tonks couldn't smell it, but she could imagine it, and she could well imagine that Luna was sensitive to it. An elderly man and a teenager, stuck in a cell for three months or more? No showers, and probably only chamber pots? Even if Lucius had thought to send Leonie to care for them ( _please_ , God, let him have done that much), even then, oh dear God.

Luna was waving her wand - in an excessively elaborate gesture, she thought - but then the room was filled with fragrant flowers. Roses, jasmine, gardenias, all kinds of them. They were in pots on every surface, and even on the windowsills, so the breeze carried fragrance into the room.

Lucius' voice sounded very small. "I'm - thank you, Luna."

Luna said kindly, "That's much better, isn't it?" and all but skipped back up the stairs without waiting for a reply.

Tonks felt perilously close to tears.

Lucius suddenly looked beaten and old, and she went to him, drawing him hard against her, while a hateful part of her protested that he had no _right_ looking for comfort when she and Remus had been out there fighting while he cowered in this death-place. The harder that part of her raged, the harder she held on, until they were both trembling and gripping hard enough to hurt.

"I'm sorry," he choked out into her shoulder. "I'm so fucking sorry."

Again she was aware of that chasm - that she forgave it, all of it, and equally that forgiveness was not hers to give. And she knew just as keenly that she was the only one he could ever ask. So she nodded, clutching at his hair and his shoulders, not trusting herself to speak.

"We should go back," she whispered at last.

He swallowed hard. Pulled away and nodded, not quite meeting her gaze.

"Do you love me?" he asked in a low voice. Hesitant.

She nodded. "I love you." It was something harsh from her throat, something dragged from her unwillingly.

God help her, despite all of it, she did.

* * *

It was the little things, Tonks reflected.

With Remus, it wasn't reproaches about the time he left her. _Any_ of the times he left her.

It was where he put the spoons in the cutlery drawer, and the way he wouldn't cut his toenails and they scratched her shins in the night. It was baked-on egg and morning breath and the way he refused to throw out Snape's Wolfsbane when they all knew (or thought they knew) whose side Snape was really on. They'd fought _bitterly_ about that. Remus knew Wolfsbane, and Snape's was the best, no matter what else he had or hadn't done.

With Lucius, it was the way he could be mean.

Not to her, or Draco, or Teddy, or Astoria. Nor Andromeda, unless Tonks did it first, and never with the razor-sharp edge he had with others.

No, it was everyone else. And the night of the commemoration of the rose garden, after their guests were gone, everyone was fair game.

It wasn't that she didn't understand it. She did. They were all filled with nervous tension, equal parts horror and humiliation and shame, and they were letting off steam as only the thoroughly incorrect Malfoys knew how.

She withstood the classist remarks about Harry's Muggle cousin, and the commentary on the Metamorphagus Violetta. (That had actually been kind of funny, and harmless enough, and Tonks had laughed along). She even stood for the comments about the eccentric Lovegoods, which were almost fond.

What pushed her over the edge was some mildly unkind remark about Chastity Abbott. (She never could recall exactly what it was later; looking back on it, she had the feeling it referenced her matronly bosom or something of that kind). In the scheme of things, it was no big deal. No big deal, that was, until you remembered that her sister had died on the table where they sat. No big deal until you remembered that she had entered this house and treated them with more grace than anyone could ever have expected of her.

At this, Tonks had risen from her chair and pushed back from the table with a clatter. She'd picked up the baby and stormed out of the room without a word.

She'd clattered up the stairs and gone to the nursery in long, angry strides. She'd put Teddy to bed and charmed the ceiling to show his favourite view, the night sky, and watched him until he located his toes, which were much more interesting to him than her. Then she came back out into the hallway.

Lucius was leaning against the wall opposite the nursery, waiting for her. He was still elegantly dressed from the day, but he looked worn out. His arms were folded and his eyes were grave.

"I've disappointed you," he said. It was neither a statement nor a question, but something in between.

"It's not about disappointment," she said. She felt tired and sore and wrung out.

"Well, it's about _something_."

She shrugged. "I'm just struggling with...with the war. In some ways, you lived through a completely different war to us, and I'm only just starting to really understand that." She looked away. "I know that's not fair when I knew how it was for you going in, but..."

The lines of his face grew hard. "I see," he said grimly.

There was something brittle and hurt in his voice that brought up kinder, softer things in her. "Lucius, no, you don't," she whispered.

"I think I do," he said, a chill falling over his voice. "Look, Nymphadora, I'm not a white knight like your sainted bloody Remus. You knew that. I'm snide and snarky and superior and I don't always do the right thing. But I love you like crazy and I'll always do the right thing by you. You have to decide once and for all whether that's enough for you, because I'm not going to compete with his memory."

She hadn't been consciously comparing Lucius with Remus at all. "Don't you talk to me about him," she sputtered, half wondering where on earth Remus had come from and the other half wondering how the hell he'd gotten her on the defensive. "You have no right."

"I have every right. Don't you think I know the way people – _change_ – after they die? I feel Narcissa slipping away, every day that she becomes more perfect and less Narcissa in my mind. I'm afraid that one day I'm going to wake up and I won't even remember who she really was."

"That's not the same at all," she said through gritted teeth. Damn him, how did this stop being about them and start being about their dead?

"Yes, it is," he said, "but for whatever reason you don't want to deal with that. I think you like rose-coloured Remus better than the man he really was."

That hit her like a punch to the stomach. She felt something twisting the lines of her face. It was equal parts disgust and dull-edged anger.

"You're an arse, Lucius," she hissed. "That was low and you know it."

"Low?" he demanded. "Or just true?"

"You know what?" she snapped. "Just forget it. I'm going out. Don't wait up."

"Nymphadora-"

She clattered down the stairs, and she was out the door before he could see her red-hot tears.

* * *

"Tonks?"

She looked up. Startled. "Ginny," she said. A little disorientated.

Ginny Weasley came out onto the doorstep, looking up and down Grimmauld Place. It was dark; the street was empty except for the two of them. "What on earth are you doing out here?"

"I – sorry," she said, sounding very flustered to her own ears. "I didn't mean to disturb you. How did you know I was here?"

Ginny nodded her head up towards the first floor. "I was getting drinks. The drinks cabinet is by the window. I saw you." She said again, "What are you doing here?"

Tonks shook her head a little. The truth was, she had come here on an instinct she hadn't understood. Groping for understanding, she said awkwardly, "Remus and I – we fell in love here –" she stopped. At a loss.

A fond, slightly sad look came over Ginny's features. "Oh. Well, for Merlin's sake, then, come inside, before you catch your death. It's bloody cold out here. You can angst just as easily indoors with a cup of tea. Or Firewhisky. Or both."

Tonks managed a wan laugh, and followed her into the house.

* * *

"He was a good man," she said softly into her drink.

Harry and Ginny nodded into theirs, but said nothing.

"I told Lucius that I loved him for that. Lucius said that was rubbish. He said good's got nothing to do with why people love. I suppose that's true, but he _was_ good, just the same."

Harry shot her a look, but remained silent. Just let her talk.

"We had our first kiss here, you know. I surprised him. Snogged him in the kitchen when it was his turn to do the dishes. Kreacher was _scandalised_. That was half the fun. Especially when he ran off and told old Walburga's portrait that a Black was snogging a werewolf. It made being half-blood seem respectable by comparison."

Tonks and Ginny both mustered a sound of mirth, but Harry shifted uncomfortably. "Er - I get that you need to, er, _talk_ , but if it's going to be girl talk, maybe I shouldn't be here."

Tonks snorted. "You needn't worry. I'm not going to tell you about our first shag."

" _Any_ shag," he supplied.

"Any shag," she agreed. "Anyway, that's not the point. It's just...I feel like I left part of myself here. Just a little part, but I can't seem to move on without it, you know?"

Ginny was looking at her. Her expression was kind.

Harry frowned. Seemed to be grappling with something. Finally, he said awkwardly, "Tonks, I don't want to hurt you here, and I don't know if this is the right time to say it, but..." he stopped.

Her voice sounded very tired to her own ears. "Go ahead, Harry. Blunders are my middle name."

Harry gave a harsh breath out, as though steeling himself, and plunged in, "Remus _was_ a good man, Tonks, but he wasn't perfect. Not by a long shot. He put you and Teddy through a lot."

Her mouth opened to protest, but then she shut it again. The stiffness in her body fell away as she considered his words.

Since Remus had died, no one, except her mother, had ever mentioned what he'd done. How he'd hurt her. It had become a taboo subject, tiptoed around like something vaguely obscene. Like _she_ was the one who'd done something wrong.

She'd never even told Lucius.

She felt her eyes soften as she looked at Harry. Felt something inside her start to break apart.

"Tonks," Ginny said gently, "he broke your heart."

That did it. She felt her face working, and she bowed her head quickly. Her breaths came in harsh little rasps. She stared down into her glass, all blurry and amber through heat and tears.

Harry went on, "If Lucius –" she gave a ragged sound, and he corrected hurriedly, "Hypothetically, if _someone_ were to make you happy, that's not something you should be giving up."

Ginny got to her feet. Busied herself taking up their glasses. Let her hand linger casually on Tonks' hunched shoulder.

Tonks gave a little, shaking sigh, and dashed away her tears. "You're right," she said, sound of wry concession. "You're absolutely right."

Ginny was standing by the drinks cabinet beside the window, refilling Harry's glass.

"Oh, good," she said nonchalantly. "Because hypothetically, someone might be waiting for you outside."

* * *

Lucius was leaning on a lamp post, watching.

It was raining, just lightly. Not hard enough for her to see the water running off the shielding charm around him, but he must have cast one, because his hair was dry. With great warmth, she recognised the vanity of the man, and loved it because it was his.

Tonks made her way down the steps, her eyes never leaving his.

"Watch where you walk, darling," he said dryly. "You and stairs have never been on very good terms."

"Very droll, darling," she mocked as she approached, but she did it kindly. "How did you know I was here?"

He had the good grace to look embarrassed. "There's a trace on your necklace," he admitted. "Not for any special reason - just for if I ever needed to find you. It's virtually a family tradition."

"Never trust a Slytherin bearing gifts," she said without rancour. Minor acts of duplicity were part and parcel of loving a Malfoy, she'd learned. "I'd have agreed to it if you'd asked." She huddled closer to him, and told herself it was to get out of the rain.

"And where would the fun be in that?" He muttered a charm and widened his shield to cover her as well. Sobering, he said, "I didn't come to make you do anything you didn't want to do, Nymphadora. I just wanted to be sure you're all right." He looked up at Number Twelve. Harry must have removed the wards, she thought, because clearly he could see it. "What is this place?"

"Once upon a time, it was Order Headquarters, and before that, it was the Black ancestral home. It passed from Sirius to Harry. I'm surprised you didn't recognise it."

"We knew there was an ancestral home, but we were never invited there. Narcissa's father and her aunt Walburga didn't get along. I assume that's why Walburga left the house to Sirius rather than to our branch of the family."

"Or maybe she thought no one else would want it, now that Grimmauld Place was a Muggle neighbourhood," Tonks said thoughtfully.

"Maybe." Lucius fell silent. He was looking at her curiously.

"You're wondering why I came here," she said presently.

He nodded. "I assumed it had some significance to you and Remus."

She nodded too. Crossed her arms and hunched a little. Suddenly awkward. "We fell in love here."

With a pang, she recognised the flicker of pain that crossed his features. Diffidently, he said, "I can go."

She shot out her hand to grasp his elbow. "Don't." It was a plea.

His expression was wary, but he nodded. "All right."

"I'm sorry about before," she offered.

He nodded. "Same."

They stood there in the moonlight for a long moment. Gazes locked. At an impasse.

She could see the crossroads in her mind's eye, demanding and oppressive. One road led to Remus and death; the other to Lucius and life. The choice should be easy but it wasn't. Both roads had a toll paid in grief and guilt and loss.

"Did we do this too soon, Nymphadora?" he asked finally, withdrawing his arm and taking her hand in his. "Us, I mean?"

"No," she said quickly. Too quickly.

He cocked an eyebrow at her.

"Maybe," she corrected after a moment. "I'm not sure." She sighed and slid her hands up onto his shoulders. "I wouldn't change it, Lucius. I wanted it. I still do."

He bowed his forehead to hers. Said huskily, "Neither would I." His eyes were red and weatherbeaten when he pulled away, in that way he sometimes had when his hurts were sore and dry rather than salty and wet. She knew him enough by now to know the dry hurt was worse.

Softly, she admitted, "You were right about - about rose-coloured Remus. I mean - what I mean is -"

He shook his head. "Don't. You needn't explain. Not to me." He was smiling, but it was a sad sort of smile. He had never said much about his recent, short-lived crisis, but now she thought she knew what it was. Had he waged his own battle with rose-coloured Narcissa?

"Yes, I do. I don't want you thinking you're...less...because of the way you survived. I don't want you thinking you have to live up to Remus," she said in a low voice. Saying it, the truth of it hit her like a crushing blow, the way she'd been looking for fractures rather than the ways they could be bridged. In dawning realisation, she went on slowly, "That's the whole problem, you see. I'm - I'm rather afraid that you'll do exactly that."

Lucius frowned. "I don't understand."

"He left me," she whispered, and her face crumpled and the tears came freely. "More than once. The last time, I was pregnant with Teddy. I'd never felt so alone in my life." His face softened with great compassion. She'd never seen him like that. "And I think...I always thought, deep down, that in the end he'd leave me for good." She wiped her eyes, rubbing them with her hands like a little child. "In a way, I guess he did."

He shook his head. "No. No, Dora." He cradled her cheek, incredibly gently. She leaned into him, closing her eyes for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was more kind than she'd ever heard from him before. "Whatever he did before, he was willing to die with you. That isn't someone looking for a way to leave."

She thought about it. Remus was such a quiet figure, and now that he was gone, with no one to speak for him, it had been easy to lose sight of who he was. Easy to deny the bad and overlook the oh-so-flawed good, in favour of black and white. Easy to forget the things about him that were complicated and decent and real. She'd forgotten the way he had fought beside her, fought alongside people who didn't accept him and people who would have oppressed him, people who didn't recognise him as a wizard with a stake in the war at all. He may have left her in life, but in the end, he had died at her side.

"Maybe that's true," she said at last. She felt the persistent ache inside her begin to loosen its grip. She didn't think it would ever leave her, but maybe it could become something that just niggled at her now and then. One day.

"I'm not looking to leave," he said, taking her face between his palms. "We Malfoys are remarkably persistent."

She felt her mouth curl up into a smile, almost against her will. He'd surprised it out of her, and she loved him for it. "I noticed."

"We're very hard to get rid of."

"Thank God for it," she said. She looked up at him, standing there in starlight filtered through rain, and asked, "Is there some reason you're not kissing me yet?"

He bent his head to hers, and kissed her soundly.

"I'm yours, Lucius," she whispered when he finally let her go. "Take me home."

So she spared Number Twelve a final bittersweet glance, and then he took her home.

 

COMING IN PART 4: ACCEPTANCE


	4. Acceptance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucius comes to terms with his most private grief, while Tonks makes peace with the fragile beauty of her past.

**[ACCEPTANCE – TONKS]**

****Remus and Tonks had been poor.

She'd never thought much about it when he was alive. It was wartime, after all. They'd counted themselves lucky to _have_ a home, and that it wasn't crashing down around their ears. When they _were_ there, it was to snatch a few hours' sleep or a quick shag, almost fully clothed, in case they were summoned to fight or raided themselves. And for several months of their marriage, she remembered with a pang, she hadn't lived there at all.

Besides - plenty of people had found themselves suddenly homeless in the wake of the Death Eaters' raids. Even Malfoy Manor had been forcibly acquired, after all. Lucius was lucky to get it back more or less in the condition it had been before the war, a few bloodstains notwithstanding.

So she'd never given their poverty much thought while he was alive. But she thought a lot about it now.

It wasn't because she was surrounded by Lucius' wealth. She liked the Manor because it had come to be her home, but she didn't covet it for its own sake.

It was partly because she'd thought a lot about the lycanthropy, and their poverty was a byproduct of that. But mostly she thought it was because of the mourning rituals of the wealthy, the portraits and statues, rituals that were completely out of her reach. Some days she thought that was just as well.

Now, standing among the portraits in the hall, she wondered whether his exclusion from Remembrance Plaza was a blessing in disguise. After all, if his image had transfigured before her there, what would she have said? She was on better terms with Remus' memory these days, that was true, but that didn't mean all debts were paid. It seemed to her like once a person was dead, they stopped being flawed, and everyone was just sad. If there were other widows with tangled love-hurt marriages, others who carried anger and grudges at things said and done in life, they weren't saying so.

"It's very rude to stare."

" _Shit_ ," she yelped. Startled. "I mean - I'm - sorry, Narcissa." Narcissa's portrait had never addressed her directly before.

Behind her, Abraxas Malfoy snorted his disapproval, muttering something about language around one's elders, but held his peace. Apparently his fear of Narcissa's wrath outweighed his periodic need to make snotty remarks about his son's half-blooded 'mistress.'

Narcissa relented. "I'm sorry if I startled you," she said with good grace.

"Not at all," Tonks said hastily. "I mean - I didn't mean to stare. I was just woolgathering."

"Quite," Narcissa replied. "And congratulations," she added, glancing down at the diamond on Tonks' hand.

Tonks held it out for inspection. "Thank you. It seems indecently big, really." It occurred to her that this might not be a seemly discussion to have with Lucius' late wife.

Narcissa said dryly, "It will grow on you, I assure you. But what were you in such deep thought about?"

"My late husband, actually," Tonks said warily. Lucius had told her that Narcissa had stage-managed some sort of helpful epiphany for him. He'd refused to divulge the details, but she was sure he'd muttered the words "manipulative" and "well-meaning harridan" under his breath. That was all very well for Lucius, but she and Narcissa had never known one another in life. She fervently hoped the portrait would not become some kind of agony-aunt-in-residence.

"Ah, yes," Narcissa said thoughtfully. "The werewolf."

"His name was Remus," Tonks snapped.

"It was a neutral statement. I meant no offence."

"It's _never_ a neutral statement."  
 **  
**"Nonsense," Narcissa said briskly. "I realise there was prejudice, but surely you had friends as well."

Tonks felt some of her irritation fall away. "We did," she conceded, "but even then...either they were friends despite the lycanthropy, or because of it. Because he was wounded, and they _liked_ it. It was something to pity or to identify with."

Narcissa said curiously, "And which were you?"

She felt a sudden flash of fury. Her face was hot, anger rising up in her like a fever. "Fuck you, Narcissa," she spat, and whirled on her heel and walked away. Wished fervently that she was graceful enough to make it a grand meaningful gesture instead of the ungainly display it undoubtedly was.

Abraxas broke the purposeful sound of her footsteps with a sniff. "I say, Narcissa, she _is_ very rude, don't you think?"

Tonks gritted her teeth. Pondered the virtues of the dead staying dead.

 _And fuck_ you _very much, Abraxas, as well.  
_  


* * *

"He _was_ a good man."

It seemed to be a constant refrain on her lips these days, as though daring someone to disagree. Or maybe just looking for someone to put it in its proper perspective.

Lucius agreed but thought it irrelevant. Harry and Ginny agreed but with caveats. She had a feeling that her mother didn't agree at all. And some had no opinion about his goodness, but doubted he was a man.

Molly set down a cup of tea before her. "Yes," she said. "He was."

At this, Tonks felt her smile form, falter, and form again. She felt warmth and pressure and salt gather around her nose, felt the tears before she could stop them. They weren't ladylike tears trailing delicately from the corners of her eyes. They were messy and red-faced and came in harsh sounds and snuffles into her handkerchief.

Molly just watched her with that motherly look on her face. It was the same look as all those times Tonks had come weeping because Remus pushed her away. Perhaps now with just the faintest shadow - the shadow of a mother who has lost one of her fold.

"Lucius isn't good," she whispered, shameful secret aired at last. "Not the way Remus was. And yet -" she stumbled on her other secret "- I love him more than I ever loved Remus."

Molly shrugged easily, as though Dora's confusion and shame were quite immaterial. "Of course you do. It's all a matter of timing, isn't it, dear?"

Tonks stared at her in bewilderment. Tears stopping all at once. "I don't - I don't follow."

"Well, wartime marriage isn't the same as peacetime marriage, now, is it? In a war, it's terribly important to be married to someone who shares your allegiances. You want someone who'll fight beside you. Isn't that how you fell in love with Remus in the first place?"

She nodded. "It was the Department of Mysteries. I admired him sooner, but I wasn't attracted until then."

Molly agreed, "That was much more important to you than whether he would stay or what kind of a husband he would be, and rightly so. For all his flaws, Remus was right for you during the war. Can you imagine being with Lucius back then? Living in that house as Voldemort's slave, pretending to embrace his cause to stay alive?"

Tonks thought for only a moment before shaking her head. "I'd have left him, if I could, or killed myself, if I couldn't," she said, damning admission that it was. _And left him to face it alone_ , she added silently, suddenly understanding that she had her own brand of wartime weakness. She'd have left just as surely as she had cast Remus aside before his body was cold. "I couldn't have stayed."

Molly said, "Of course you couldn't. You and Lucius would have been quite wrong for one another back then. He needed Narcissa just as much as you needed Remus."

Glimmers of realisation began to penetrate her mind. "Yes," she said, piecing it together. " _Back then_ , yes. But now -"

 _But now, Remus and I wouldn't have made it_ , she thought. She didn't say so. That was one truth she would never speak aloud. To anyone.

Perhaps Molly heard what Tonks had not said, because she didn't press her. Instead, she said, "Peacetime is different. If marriage was just for those who were very very good, dear, there would be precious few marriages to speak of. Most of us are just _normal_ , don't you think?"

She dragged in her breath. Composed herself, breathing in the steam as it rolled off her cup of tea. "Yeah."

"I went to school with Lucius, you know," Molly said mildly. "He was a couple of years below me. You mustn't tell him this, but I rather think he might have had a little crush on me." She tapped the side of her nose with her finger, suddenly dimples and mischief.

Tonks let out a watery laugh. "I think so too. He thinks it's terrible that Arthur didn't give you the world on a platter."

"How very like Lucius to focus on all the wrong things," Molly said indulgently.

"He's strong," she said presently. "Strong enough that I don't have to be the only one to hold us together. And he stays. No matter what's been said, no matter if he's angry or ashamed or hurt - he always stays."

"Does that make him the right man for you now?" Molly wondered. She said it gently.

She felt lightness then - a lightness she hadn't felt since before the war. "I think it does," she said. "Oh, _blast_ it all, I'm crying _again_ , Molly."

Molly rose. Took up her cup. She said:

"Well, then, dear. I suppose that calls for more tea."

* * *

 

**[ACCEPTANCE - LUCIUS]**

They were in Segovia.

It was a little province in Spain, not far north of Madrid. A place where ancient, medieval, and modern coexisted in harmony. Muggles and magic, too. Division had no place in Segovia.

They were in a cemetery, standing at the top of rough stone steps, looking out over a gothic castle rising out of a rocky crag. The Alcázar, Nymphadora had said. The sun was descending but they were still drenched in light. It was a different light than England, he thought. It burned brighter but it was gentle as well.

"Why did you bring us here?" Lucius wondered, taking Nymphadora's hand in his own. She was standing beside him, leaning on a rock with a plaque written in languages he didn't recognise. Her eyes were closed. Soaking up the warmth.

"Does there have to be a reason?" she said, a smile playing around the corners of her mouth.

"No," he said, "but you were very insistent. And you were insistent that it should be all three of us."

Draco, standing alongside her on her other side, shot her a sidelong look. Lucius knew that look. Whatever she'd cooked up, they'd cooked it up together.

"All in good time," she said maddeningly. She tapped her fingers on the plaque, next to the legend, _Cementerio Judio_. "Lucius, do you know who the Jews are?"

He looked at her. Frowned and shook his head.

"I thought you'd be interested, because of the war. Some of it will be close to home, though. Do you want to hear it?"

Warily, he nodded.

"They were a persecuted race. It isn't quite as simple as that - they also trace their ancestry back to a tribe of religious significance, for one thing. But that's not really the point for the moment. Anyway. The Muggles had a great war, about sixty years ago now. England was badly affected, as was most of Europe."

Lucius nodded in recognition. He wasn't clear on the details, but the magical world had not been immune from the destruction wrought by the great Muggle war. He had been born only six years after it ended, had grown up with tales of witches and wizards caught unawares, forced to take refuge in the Muggle Tube, and of the time the Hogwarts Express had escaped destruction only through the _Protego Maxima_ of a quick-thinking prefect.

Nymphadora went on, "Muggle Germany was ruled by a dictator at the time, and he took the view that the Jews were genetically inferior. They weren't the only ones persecuted, but the Jews got the worst of it. There was a state-sponsored policy of ethnic cleansing. They say that six million were killed."

Lucius felt chills as the blood drained from his face. "Six million? Surely – that can't be –"

"There are a small minority who dispute the figure, but the logistics appear to support the numbers. There were machines and rooms designed for mass executions. Industrial furnaces to deal with the bodies. The camps were like factories for the purpose." Her voice seemed suddenly ghastly, droning on in a litany of the mechanics of mass murder.

"Merlin," he whispered. "It sounds like Voldemort's dream come true."

She nodded, her lips settled into a grim line. "It does, doesn't it? Anyway. The point is, most Germans weren't evil. There was evil at the top and in the inner circle, but most people were just scared and weak. And maybe they kind of agreed in a general way that the Jews were less than them. Maybe they didn't care what happened, as long as it didn't happen to them."

He wondered if that was what she thought of him.

Nymphadora looked away, out over the castle before them. Went on, "That's the big dirty secret in our world right now, you know. Death Eaters weren't the only ones who hated Muggles. It's like you said. There was plenty of hate to go round, through the First and Second Wars, and before that, as well. Purebloods looked down on half-bloods, half-bloods looked down on Muggle-borns, Muggle-borns looked down on Muggles, and the hate went on through the magical creatures. It still does."

Lucius nodded. "Voldemort counted on it. There weren't enough Death Eaters to start one war, let alone two. But he knew that a lot of people would look the other way – so long as the victims weren't just like them. It's the same thinking that sees witches and wizards with disabilities persecuted even now. Like the squibs and the werewolves."

She nodded. Said thoughtfully, "Their recruitment strategies weren't much different to Voldemort's, you know. All young people were automatically enrolled in a state-sponsored youth organisation. The dictator introduced his ideas by stealth to a new generation. They were trapped before they knew it."

Lucius realised that his hand had wandered to his sleeve, towards his Dark Mark. He stilled it. "But they didn't all stay."

"No. Some deserted, some kept their heads down, and others subverted from within."

He turned away from her, to look out straight ahead. "I kept my head down. Which makes me one of the people who let it happen."

"If so, you're in good company. In our world and theirs."

"And that makes it all right? I never picked you for one to rationalise, Nymphadora."

"I'm not rationalising and I'm not excusing. But if all those everyday Germans had curled up in a ball of guilt when the war was over, it wouldn't be the nation it is today. They got to work and rebuilt. Just like you." She took his hand. "I'm proud of the work you're doing, Lucius. I'm sorry I didn't say so sooner."

He shook his head. "It really is so little compared to what you and Remus did." He squeezed her hand in return anyway.

"Better late than never. After all, the hate is still there. Maybe this time we can help stop the spread."

"Maybe," he murmured.

They fell silent, looking out over the castle.

He wondered after a moment, "Are these war dead?"

"No. The Jews were exiled from Spain much earlier, centuries ago now. That was over religious conflicts, not racial ones. They were told to accept Christianity, or leave. Most left."

"Then why did we come here? Why not Germany?"

Nymphadora turned a fond smile on him, the sun backlighting her hair like a halo. Draco was smiling too. "We didn't come all this way for Muggle history, Lucius. This is just a detour."

A smile played around the corners of his mouth. "What have you two been scheming together?"

Draco looked at Nymphadora, his expression amused and questioning. She nodded eagerly.

He drew his wand and held it up for inspection. Lucius peered at it. Blinked.

"It's new," he said after a moment's silence. "Is that elmwood?"

Draco nodded. "Like Mum's. And it's got a unicorn hair core, like my first one."

Nymphadora chimed in, "There's a wandmaker here. Retired. He sheltered Karkaroff for a time when he was on the run, so we knew he would be sympathetic to Draco."

Lucius nodded in understanding, but did not touch it. "It's excellent workmanship, Draco," he said, suppressing a grimace and smiling at them both. "I'm really pleased for you."

Nymphadora reached into her sleeve and drew something out. She said gently, "That means Draco has no further need for this."

She was holding out Narcissa's wand between them, like an offering. It rested gently on her palms.

Lucius felt warmth rising in his face. "Oh," he whispered. "Oh - Dora - I don't -"

"It will work for you," she said implacably. "Mendez - the wandmaker - he said the wand will recognise love and loyalty to its mistress."

He shook his head. Swallowed hard. "I don't deserve this," he said in a low voice. "I brought it down on all of us. What I did - it killed her in the end. I don't -" and then he was breathing hard, unable to finish.

Nymphadora closed her hand over his. Gently placed the wand in his palm. "She loved you. She would want you to have it. She would want you to forgive yourself." She whispered, "Please."

Reluctantly, he closed his hand around the wand, and he _felt_ it, felt it respond to him, like he was back in Ollivander's as a boy, choosing the wand that would eventually be snapped like so much driftwood and used by another as an instrument of death. And _this_ wand - he'd held this wand a hundred times, passed it thoughtlessly to Narcissa over and over again as they went about their daily business. It had never recognised him like this.

He breathed out, a low and trembling sound.

"Thank you," he said softly. Groped for her hand and found it. Drew her close, grasping, swallowing hard.

He felt, rather than heard Draco's tactful withdrawal, and they stayed there, holding on tight as the sun set over the Alcázar.

"Sundown," Nymphadora said gently against his shoulder. "The Jewish day begins at sundown, Lucius. It's a new day."

He wasn't convinced he deserved one, but he was damn glad to have one anyway.

* * *

"I miss her."

He said it pensively, sitting in the armchair in their bedroom that evening, looking at Narcissa's wand in his hands. He had not made peace with it enough to think of it as his, and suspected it would be some time before he could.

"I know," Nymphadora said gently, not turning around.

She was sitting, brushing her hair at Narcissa's dressing table. _Her_ dressing table, he corrected. He noted with fond amusement that she had a smudge of soot on her hand from the Floo. Somehow she never seemed to escape unmarked.

"I love you," he said. He didn't say _I wouldn't change it_ ; didn't even dare try to figure out if it were true. Among widows, some questions were best left unasked. Instead, he said simply, "But I still miss her."

In the mirror, he could see the look of compassion flit across her face. "I know that, Lucius."

They fell silent for a while, him toying with the wand, her preparing for bed. Taking her time. Giving him his space. He recognised her kindness and loved her for it.

"It's chilly," he said after a while. He said it to break the silence, but it was also true. Unseasonably so, in fact. It was only September.

"Go ahead and light the fire," she said, not turning around. "You've got a wand, remember. You can do it yourself now."

He manufactured a wide smile. "You're closer."

She turned on the stool. "I really think you should do it." Met his gaze with eyes that were clouded with concern.

He drew in his breath, roughly, in a gasp. Horrid tears stinging his eyes. "How long have you known?"

"I've always known," she said gently. "Mum went to claim the bodies. Bellatrix was there, but Narcissa wasn't. She visited Draco while he was under house arrest. I think she hoped Narcissa had made it out. He had to tell her." The lines of her face were softer than he'd ever seen them. There was love and indescribable compassion in that look.

He could feel his face working, trembling.

"Lucius," she said, softly. "You did the right thing. Don't you know that?"

"She was my wife," he whispered. "And I left her to burn."

"And Remus is in a shallow war-grave in Hogsmeade, far from his kin. Death isn't pretty, and death in battle less still. You gave her what you could. Her wand wouldn't work for you if you'd let her down." She nodded to the fireplace. "Light the fire, Lucius. It won't hurt you. _She_ won't hurt you. She loved you."

He hesitated. Gave a quick, abrupt little nod. Lifted Narcissa's wand - _his_ wand - and pointed it at the hearth. It shook in his hand. He remembered the last time he had cast this spell with this wand; then, as now, his eyes had been wet and his chin had trembled so much that he could hardly get the word out.

" _Incendio_ ," he muttered.

The fire flickered to life in the fireplace, warmth erupting and washing over him as he let out a shaking sigh. Healing him, not all the way, but a little. Little by little, he thought, it would happen.

He had never really believed it until now.

Nymphadora was on her knees before him. Gently extricating the wand from his hand. Placing it on the bedside table.

"I love you," she said softly. "It's going to be okay."

"I know," he said. It felt (and sounded) not so much like an affirmation as concession. "I know."

She got to her feet. Stood there before him, her hands held out. "Come to bed, Lucius."

He took them and let her lead him. They stopped by the bed. She began to unfasten her robe, not a sensual gesture, but unselfconsciously, like she was alone in the room.

Quite suddenly, unthinkingly, he took her by the arms and kissed her. Let his hands soften to cradle her shoulders.

She made a tiny sound of surprise, and then her hands rose, and slid into his hair. " _Lucius_ ," she whispered against his lips.

 _There's life after,_ he thought. It came to him unbidden, but he knew at once that it was true. They were changed, but they were whole.

The things that washed over him then were devastating, shattering him and building him up all over again. Equal part joy and tears, and he was _sick_ of tears. Sick of tasting them and swallowing them down. But the good was exhilarating. Good was her kissing him back and drawing herself up closer and gasping out his name.

 _There's life after,_ he thought again.

Nymphadora - his love, his life - she was drawing him down with her. Drawing him in. Making him warm.

Leading him into life after.

And Lucius followed.

* * *

 

**[ACCEPTANCE - TONKS]**

"Thank you."

She said it softly. So softly that the words were almost lost, carried away on flakes of snow.

"What for?" Lucius wondered. His arm was heavy and comforting against hers.

She looked up at him, pushing back her veil to do it. It was heavy silk, almost opaque, trimmed with white diricawl feathers, and her overdress was heavy and embroidered and white. It was the complete opposite of what she'd worn for her Handfasting to Remus; complete opposite, too, of Lucius' summer wedding to Narcissa. It was theirs, and that was for the best.

Now, she said, "For coming here with me today. For understanding." She looked down at Remus' grave. "He wasn't perfect, but he was mine, and I loved him."

His hold on her hand tightened, but he said nothing.

"I'm sorry you don't have anywhere to go for Narcissa," she offered.

"I do," he said mildly. "She's in the breeze."

She nodded thoughtfully. "I like that. I think she would, too."

They fell silent, each with their own thoughts. Two survivors in a field of war-dead.

"She'd be glad about _this_ , I think," he said abruptly, glancing at her midsection, the secret passing between them. This was theirs, kept even from Draco and Andromeda for now. "We wanted to try for a girl. But I think we thought, after Voldemort fell and I stayed out of Azkaban, that we'd already dodged a couple of hexes. It seemed like pushing our luck, somehow."

She nodded. "I know." And she did; during the worst of the war, just loving at all had seemed like more luck than any of them dared hope for. Little wonder that Remus, of all people – Remus, for whom luck was always in such short supply – couldn't bring himself to trust it.

Lucius said hesitantly, "Nymphadora, about the baby." Tonks raised an eyebrow in query, and he went on, "I know it is quite usual to name post-war babies after ones who have passed. You yourself did so," he added.

She nodded. "Yes, I did. My father died a week before Teddy was born." Wondered where he was going with this.

He said, "I feel – rather strongly – that life is for the living. Could we _not_ do that?"

She realised that he was worried about her reaction.

"Yes," she said warmly. "Let's not."

A smirk flitted over his features. "I was thinking of Cassiopeia."

" _Ugh_ ," she said. "You've been talking to my _mother_."

"It's an interesting story," he said mildly. "Cassiopeia and Andromeda-"

"Competed with the Nymphs about who was the most beautiful," she supplied. "I know the story, and I've no idea _what_ my mother was thinking when she did it. She could have just called me Electra Complex and been done with it."

He said seriously, "She told me what she was thinking. She thought you were the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen."

She stared up at him. "Mum said that?" she said softly. Then, incredulously, "To _you_?"

Lucius sniffed, "I keep telling you, your mother loves me, deep down."

Tonks grinned. "Tell you what. I'll stay away from memorial names if you stay away from ancient myths and constellations. Agreed?"

His mouth twitched. "Agreed."

She looked down at Remus' grave again. "I suppose Draco and Astoria will be waiting."

"I believe the definition of a bridesmaid and groomsman is to wait on the bride and groom," he said dryly. "So let them wait."

She gave a little laugh, and then they fell silent.

"Lucius?" she said at last.

He looked at her, his expression a query.

"Do you remember what you asked me that time? About why I loved him?"

He gave a wry sound. "I seem to recall you reacted rather strongly to that question."

She flashed a faint smile up at him, but it faded quickly. She became pensive. "It was a lot of things, of course, but I think – it was the way he was broken. I don't mean it was pity – there were things in him that were fragile and beautiful, and I loved them. But they were a double-edged sword, too. They hurt me." She held his gaze, piercing and blue where Remus' had been soft and brown. Felt something inside her shatter; moreover, she knew it was safe to shatter, just for a little while. "With you, I love stronger things. And I like that."

He pressed his lips to her forehead. "I love you, Nymphadora. And I think he did, too. His burden was great, and I think he loved you as much as he could."

She nodded against him. Felt tears slip down her cheeks, the first she'd shed for Remus in a long time.

He pulled away. "Take some time with him. I'll be close by."

"Thank you," she whispered, taking his hand in hers. She tried to imbue those words with everything that had passed between them these eighteen months, and she didn't know if he heard it, but he lingered, holding her for a long moment before turning away.

She thought, turning back to Remus' grave, that she would have too much to say, that she would overflow in a babbling brook of thoughts, but she didn't. Her mind was still and at peace.

 _I think I've finally gotten used to living in a world without you in it, Remus,_ she thought. _I'm moving on and you're standing still and that's how death works, in the end. It separates people across time._ She felt her mouth form a quavering smile through her tears. _I'm so glad I had you in the time we had. Despite everything. Or maybe because of it_.

"You always wanted me to be happy," she whispered. "So that's what I'm going to do."

She crouched down in the snow. Reached out and touched the headstone. And then she let go.

She got to her feet, and turned away, and went to find her future.

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am in the process of uploading my back catalogue of fic at the moment, so sometimes my current HP work will not be at the top of my author listing. You can see all my HP work together [here](http://archiveofourown.org/users/deslea/works?fandom_id=136512).
> 
> **Additional Notes:**
> 
> _See also the related work,[Two Of A Kind: A Yule Interlude](http://archiveofourown.org/works/312495), an Andromeda POV on her flight from her family of origin, set in the middle of [Anger - Tonks]._
> 
> 1\. This story was inspired simply by an Order of the Phoenix publicity shot of Tonks with blonde hair. I had an image of her being mistaken for a Death Eater in the Battle of Hogwarts. I also always found it unbelievable that Voldemort would not punish Narcissa for her deception about Harry's death. The rest is history.
> 
> 2\. The Muggle poetry reference in the first chapter is to the poem The Second Coming. The full poem is:
> 
>  
> 
> _Turning and turning in the widening gyre  
>  The falcon cannot hear the falconer;  
> Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;  
> Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,  
> The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere  
> The ceremony of innocence is drowned;  
> The best lack all conviction, while the worst  
> Are full of passionate intensity._
> 
>  
> 
> _Surely some revelation is at hand;  
>  Surely the Second Coming is at hand.  
> The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out  
> When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi  
> Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert  
> A shape with lion body and the head of a man,  
> A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,  
> Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it  
> Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.  
> The darkness drops again; but now I know  
> That twenty centuries of stony sleep  
> Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,  
> And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,  
> Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?_
> 
>  
> 
> _\-- William Butler Yeats, January 1919_
> 
>  
> 
> 3\. Contrary to Lucius' vague idea on the subject, Tonks was not a dowager. A dowager is a widow who inherited a title and/or property from her husband. As Remus did not leave Tonks those things, she was simply Madam Lupin, or Miss or Madam or Auror Tonks. (Or Ms, I suppose, but I have seen no evidence that Ms is used in the magical world). While Lucius is educated about protocol for society, his social circles did not normally include the poor, hence his confusion. In any event, in this universe, Tonks is inconsistent about her own use of titles and surnames, because she isn't really interested in any name but "just Tonks."
> 
> 4\. In canon, Narcissa's wand appears to have been lost in the Room of Requirement and destroyed by Fiendfyre. However, having killed Narcissa and resurrected Tonks for this little AU jaunt, I thought one more variation was acceptable.
> 
> 5\. I'm aware that Remus gets some pretty scathing treatment in this story. I hope it's clear as the story unfolds that I actually like Remus a lot. However, it is a difficult thing to be left with unfinished business after a sudden death, and Tonks had unfinished business by the truckload.
> 
> 6\. Did Andromeda and Xenophilius marry? In my head-canon, yes, though I don't know how well she'd have coped with sharing the marital home with the Quibbler. Perhaps they were a post-modern couple with separate houses joined by Floo.
> 
> 7\. Was Dudley and his girlfriend's baby magical? Part of me hopes not, but part of me thinks it could be too, too funny. Especially when Petunia and Vernon find out. It would be even better if their baby was a Metamorphagus. What? It could happen!
> 
> 8\. In my head-canon, Lucius and Tonks avoided myths and constellations and people (dead or alive), and went for names with meaning, calling their daughter Evita Althea. Evita is derived from the Latin for life, and Althea is Greek for healing.
> 
> 9\. The Jewish cemetery in Segovia, Spain exists, and it is almost exactly as described. However, there is an English inscription on the plaque, as well as a number of languages Lucius would not know, including Spanish and Hebrew. I'm going to pretend Draco was leaning on the plaque at that moment. *whistles*
> 
> 10\. I do hope I have not caused offence with the references to World War II. Naturally, many Harry Potter fen have made the connections between Voldemort's wars and Hitler. But I really couldn't think of a better way of leading Lucius to a point where he could at least accept himself enough to keep doing his good work in the here and now. A big part of this universe is that the brave new postwar world isn't perfect, even now, and people have to guard it, and Lucius in particular needs to do it, because he owes that much.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [FIC: Two Of A Kind: Yule Interlude](https://archiveofourown.org/works/312495) by [deslea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deslea/pseuds/deslea)




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